


A greenbright earth

by Anonymous



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alkahestry, Extra Treat, Flirting, M/M, Plot, Road Trips, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-10-28 11:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In preparation for election season, General Roy Mustang embarks on a month-long diplomatic mission to Xing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kirathaune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirathaune/gifts).

> Hello, Kirathaune! You said you enjoy people being clueless about how they feel about each other, mutual respect turning into something more, and characters realizing they’re in love. I ALSO love those things, so much so that your prompts ended up running away with me a little bit. The last chapters are already in the works and will be on their way out within the next couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy! :) 
> 
> (I’m scared of continuity and can't give a specific date, but this is meant to take place in the whereabouts of 10-15 years after the very end of the manga.)

The train swayed, gathering speed. Gold sand and cloudless blue sky rushed past beyond the half-raised shade. Watching it for too long made Roy oddly dizzy with a feeling that was something between motion sickness and agoraphobia -- they had been in the desert for close to a day now. He had gone to sleep with it and woken to it outside the window, unchanged. It had begun to feel like racing in an endless circle through a massive hourglass.

“Sir,” Hawkeye said across from him, gently chiding. She reached across and lowered the shade.

Roy looked away from the window. The Major’s eyes were already back on the papers in her lap, giving no indication that she had been watching. He sighed and stared back down at his own paper: yesterday’s _ East Enquirer _.

A quick scan of the headlines showed nothing of interest. “Nothing new,” he reported to Hawkeye. “I told you, it’s too early in the election cycle. If there’s nothing in the Central papers East isn’t going to have anything. Though…” He flipped through to the gossip section and glanced over it. “I’m disappointed. We did stop there, you’d think they would have mentioned me.”

“Don’t worry.” Hawkeye sighed. “We tried to conceal our arrival time beforehand, but when we stopped Hirsch and O’Hannigan chased away several reporters. I don’t know what they thought they were doing hanging around the station at four in the morning. Today’s paper would probably be more to your liking, but I don’t expect it will arrive in Xianzai before next week.”

“_Hirsch _ chased them away?” Roy raised an eyebrow when Hawkeye looked up at them. “I would have thought you’d get to them first, Major.”

“I was collecting the paper for you, sir.” She paused. “Hirsch’s men do have their uses, you know.”

“I’m sure you could have decimated a horde of reporters on your own even with a newspaper in each hand,” muttered Roy. “Who knows, you could have used the newspapers to do the decimating. A little poetic justice.”

“Hirsch let me know when I returned and I thanked her for her diligence,” Hawkeye said, unperturbed.

“Well, I’m glad she’s managed to make herself useful.” Roy tossed the paper onto the teetering stack of Amestrian papers he’d already been through that morning. “Got any more for me, Major?”

“I appreciate your initiative, sir. Now that you’re through Amestris we can move on to Xing.” Hawkeye thrust a thin bundle of papers into his hand. “Here’s the Xianzai news starting from three weeks ago, courtesy of Percy Kwan.”

Roy squinted at it for a minute, trying to recognize any of the characters Percy had tried to get him to memorize in their few days together before the departure. It wasn’t much use. The tiny brushstrokes all swam together in a flurry on the page.

“So much for that,” he murmured to Hawkeye, who gave no indication of having heard him. He reached out and rapped on the compartment door.

There was a brief sound of fumbling outside, like somebody had dropped something and tried to catch it. A second later the door slid open and Quintin’s head poked through -- try as he might, Roy couldn’t think of Quintin as _ Mr. Wang _. It was easier with Hirsch and O’Hannigan, seasoned and stone-faced as they were, but the perpetual nervous slant of Quintin’s eyebrows and the quizzical, almost desperate look on his face whenever Roy called for him reminded Roy of nothing more than himself a week out of the academy, wide-eyed and young. So he had to be Quintin.

“Sir?”

“Ah, Mr. Wang,” Roy said. “Is Mr. Kwan or Professor Keyes around? I seem to have encountered a problem neither I nor the Major can overcome.” He lifted the newspaper and smiled. 

“Of course, sir!” Quintin pushed the hair out of his eyes and hastily saluted. “I think Professor Keyes is in the next compartment over. I’ll go get her.” 

The door stuck when Quintin tried to shut it behind himself; he pulled at it ineffectually for a moment then just left it. A minute later Sela Keyes appeared outside, peered curiously in, then pushed the door the rest of the way open and entered. 

She sat down next to Roy, her dark eyes narrowing as she leaned over to look at what he was holding. “On to the Xianzai papers already?” 

“Yes, if you don’t mind.” Roy handed her the paper. “Sorry to take you away from your research. I don’t need the whole thing, they told the Major the latest ones were about a week old anyway, but if you could look for anything to do with the emperor or the court or anything about our visit… Major, if you don’t mind…?”

Hawkeye already had the few other Xingese papers stacked and waiting for him. He accepted them gratefully and passed them to Keyes as well.

Keyes was already flipping through the first one, scanning the pages with practiced ease. “It’s no problem,” she said as an afterthought, not looking at him. “Xingese papers are mostly cultural, their reporters don’t tend to take a political stance. It’s not acceptable to openly criticize the emperor and most news sources refrain from discussing him in the interest of harmony. Looking at this I could suggest some good plays for you but I don’t see anything especially relevant.” She set it aside and moved on to the next one.

For a minute there was silence and the sound of pages turning. “Here,” Keyes finally said, “they have a fluff piece about the ambassadors and clan officials in the Emperor’s court at Xianzai. Nothing politically useful, but I could tell you who to expect there. It looks like the Huan ambassador, who I don’t know, has just departed and is getting most of the spotlight.”

Reading Keyes was always difficult. Roy glanced at her and saw nothing indicative of what she was thinking. He doubted that she liked him very much. At least the feeling was mutual. “Anything about Ambassador Ross?”

“She’s mentioned -- _ very _briefly. The Ren and the Ji clan officials have most of the page space, and the Huan ambassador, who I don’t know. The column writer doesn’t seem to like him. The Ren and the Ji clan appear to be feuding over a musical composition… I’ll just translate the whole thing for you, General, if you don’t mind.”

It certainly wasn’t political; Roy learned a lot very quickly about the Huan ambassador’s bad breath and lack of table manners, the Ren official’s new style of robes, the Ji princess’s recommended morning routine, and the latest popular school of musical thought, but nothing about the predominant political attitude in Xing toward Amestrian visitors, or even the Amestrian ambassador. Keyes continued to translate. Roy leaned back into his seat and raised the shade again.

The world outside changed slowly, the sand dulling to a soft silver as the sloping dunes in the distance began to swell into foothills. He saw a flash of green tucked into the shadow of a rock, then another.

Someone rapped on the door panel and Keyes fell silent, the corner of her mouth twisting down. Roy looked up to see Percy Kwan leaning against the doorframe, smiling into the compartment. “A new interest in music, General?” he asked.

“Not exactly. Don’t any of these journalists write anything about court politics?”

“Too dangerous,” Percy said. “Or -- maybe not now, under Emperor Yao, but it’s not the done thing. A habit of centuries is hard to break.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’ll find out what I can at our stop before Xianzai and catch you up if there’s anything to know. Which is what I was coming back to tell you, actually; we’re about to cross the border into Xing. We’ll stop at the border wall to refuel while they search the luggage and then it should be an easy nineteen hours to Xianzai. You know where to find me if you need anything before then, but it looks like the professor is taking pretty good care of you for now! Thanks, General.” He tossed a loose salute and went on down the corridor.

\-----

Past the border wall, the sky darkened early, clouds smothering the afternoon sun. While it was still light enough to see Roy sneaked glances back at the wall in the west behind them, a silent guardian running north and south as far as the eye could see. The rain began to fall close to the time the sun would have set and soon after that he couldn’t see anymore.

His sleep was restless, as it had been every night on the train since they left Central. Campaign materials and loosely drafted speeches danced behind his eyelids when he slept, and when he half-woke in the darkness he was composing speeches again or running through the Xingese words Percy and Keyes had taught him, except he couldn’t remember what any of them meant. Chris had known very little Xingese and never spoke it to anyone around him, and he would have been too young to remember if his father ever had. He slept to the sound of rain on the roof and the creaking of the wheels and dreamed he asked Hawkeye to turn the train around.

The Major rapped on his door the next morning to wake him up. “You should look outside,” she said when he left his private sleeping compartment and joined her, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes. Hirsch, O’Hannigan, and Quintin stood just beyond her in the corridor, looking as professionally disinterested as ever.

Roy slid between the three of them -- O’Hannigan was a big man, he got in the way -- and went back to the compartment Hawkeye had gradually claimed for their traveling study. He may as well have slept there, he reflected. It would have done as much good. He raised the shade and looked out on a new, glowing world.

Any trace of the desert was long gone. Silver and white clouds streaked the purple-blue sky with a misty haze, visible beyond the great trees that rose up along the tracks, their deep green leaves blurring past. In the distance through the gaps between them he saw foothills and purple mountains and the light flashing on the surface of some large body of water.

As the day went on Roy stole glances out the window, watching as the trees thinned out and began to have clearings and grassy meadows between them. Little villages with straw roofs and huts made of mud appeared in the clearings. The train whipped through a field of something growing, vast and green, and through another forest, and came upon a town where the houses were larger and the trees scarcer. After that came another stretch of fields, and then another town where there were shops too and cobblestoned roads running alongside the tracks. Roy forgot to pretend to pay attention to his paperwork and stared out the window as the sun rose higher and the roads by the tracks filled with bicycles and people on foot and horses and donkeys and the occasional flock of sheep or goats. It seemed only minutes before Percy was there, rapping on the door again.

“Better get your things together, General!” he sang out, dark red eyes sparkling. Percy always smiled, but this was a wider and Roy thought perhaps more genuine grin than he’d worn for the whole trip. “The Xianzai station’s coming up in about twenty minutes. God, this route is wonderful on a train. You wouldn’t believe what it’s like on a camel. See you on the other side!” As quickly as he’d come he was gone down the corridor to alert the others.

The Xianzai station -- it had a name, which Roy was ashamed to have forgotten and couldn’t ask Percy about now -- rushed up to them in what felt a good deal faster than twenty minutes. He couldn’t seem to get his things together. Every suitcase and briefcase and box Hawkeye set out for him, Hirsch moved or O’Hannigan whisked away or Quintin bumped into; he had lost track of his campaign papers from yesterday and didn’t know if they were even packed; one of Keyes’ researchers was tugging at his sleeve asking him if he had a minute to talk. He didn’t see the moment they arrived, but he knew about it soon enough, when O’Hannigan came wading through the crowd of researchers and oversized luggage that had begun to flood the corridor, eyes glinting with purpose. Hirsch followed in his wake.

“Come on, sir, let’s get you out of here,” Hirsch said and tugged at his arm with repellent professionalism.

“Major Hawkeye is finding my campaign papers.”

“The Major will rejoin us outside. We’re going now, so we can get you out first -- safety concerns.” She had to tilt her head to look up at him, but her blue eyes were hard as steel.

“You don’t think the Ren clan representatives will react _ that _badly to my lack of taste in ceremonial dress, do you?” Roy asked mildly, but neither Hirsch nor O’Hannigan appeared to be familiar with the latest Xianzai Imperial Court gossip columns. O’Hannigan gripped his shoulder firmly and he gave up. “Was this Professor Keyes’ idea too?”

“We’re here to keep you safe, sir,” Hirsch said flatly, as O’Hannigan started to steer him gently toward the door. Quintin appeared beside him, looking small and frazzled.

“I can protect myself, and if I can’t that’s what the Major is here for,” Roy complained, aware even as he said it of how he must sound. “This _ entourage _, all of you, all of the scientists… we’ll alienate the Xingese people in a heartbeat. Keyes needs to rethink her strategy.”

Hirsch said nothing to that.

Roy wasn’t entirely sure how they finally exited the train, but somewhere in the bustle he found himself eventually, blinking sun out of his eyes and breathing in the humid air as Hawkeye deposited yet another suitcase beside him. His three bodyguards were grouped off to the side, watching like the suitcase could be expected to explode any minute. 

A good-sized crowd of people milled around the station, watching them -- they looked more curious and even excited than upset. Barriers had been placed around the main platform to keep them back. Roy waved and smiled; a few of them waved back.

Hawkeye tapped his shoulder and he spun around in time to see Ambassador Ross hop neatly over one of the barriers, her short hair and odd Amestrian-Xingese blend of clothing marking her instantly. A blond bearded man in Xingese robes followed her, probably one of the new aides that had been sent out to assist her last winter.

“Ambassador!” Roy exclaimed, feeling his face break out into a wider smile. He hadn’t seen Ross since the celebratory gala for her departure, almost five years ago now, and letters were a poor substitute. Her eyes laughed brightly as she hurried up to shake his hand. “Xianzai treating you well?”

“I should be asking you that, General.” Ross cast her eyes over the train, his entourage of researchers and bodyguards milling behind him. “I assume the trip went smoothly. They look eager.” 

“They are.” Ross looked happy enough to see them, so Roy didn’t bother adding that their inclusion had been Keyes’ idea. “We got out of Amestris without too much of a news circus, and I can’t complain about the desert trip. Especially not to you.” The northeastern desert rail passage hadn’t been completed when Ross set out for Xing as their ambassador, and she’d had to make the majority of the journey on camelback.

“You say that, but you have no idea of how bad it can really be.” Ross sighed. “It almost makes me want to go back with you, just to experience it.”

“Don’t say that, we need you here!” Roy patted her shoulder. “Anyway, I’m sure your aides told you all about the northeastern rail last winter, I don’t need to reopen old wounds. How was the trip?” he added to the tall young man behind Ross, shifting focus automatically. “General Roy Mustang, pleased to make your acquaintance.” He had already gone in for a handshake before his eyes reached the man’s face. 

“General Mustang,” Alphonse Elric said, taking the offered hand with barely a hint of a smile, though his golden eyes sparkled. In front of him, Ross stifled a laugh. “I think we’re already acquainted.”

Alphonse had gotten taller. Of course he had, Roy thought, he wasn’t fourteen anymore, and he had always been taller than Ed, and Ed had told him to expect Alphonse to be hanging around the Imperial Court anyway, when he found out that Roy was going. It was an embarrassing mistake. “Alphonse!” he said, hoping his exuberance was not too reminiscent of Bradley, or Grumman, or anybody like that -- and then he floundered between _ Of course! _ , the blatantly false, or _ What a surprise! _, the blatantly obvious. In the end he settled for shaking Alphonse’s hand in silence.

“It’s good to see you, General Mustang. And Captain Hawkeye,” Alphonse added, turning to her to shake her hand.

“Major now,” Hawkeye said with an answering smile. “It’s good to see you too, Alphonse. Edward mentioned you might show up in Xianzai this time of year.” Roy wished a mountain of paperwork upon her.

“Major Hawkeye! Congratulations!” Alphonse didn’t bother to hide his smile anymore. “How have you been?”

That was enough to start Hawkeye off; the Elric brothers brought something out in her that Roy had seen nobody else but Rebecca Catalina or Kain Fuery manage to accomplish. In an instant the two of them were talking about Fullmetal and his children, and how Gracia was doing, and Elicia’s football team playing the regionals. Most of it flew past Roy. He stood trying to look as though he were listening to Hawkeye while shooting as many sidelong glances at Alphonse as he thought he could get away with. Damn Fullmetal. He should have sent him a picture, or a description, or something so Roy didn’t embarrass himself. A man couldn’t be expected to extrapolate the image of a healthy young adult from a hulking suit of armor and a skeletal pre-teen. Alphonse glanced at him while he was staring and Roy hurriedly looked back at the Major.

“I left the dogs with Fuery,” she was saying, “but the puppy cries, so I don’t know…”

“You have dogs?” Ross broke in, her eyes lighting up. 

“I always have,” said Hawkeye. “You remember Hayate? The older one is his daughter, and the puppy is a little red dog. A stray. She’s very disobedient.”

“Like mine.” Ross grinned. “The emperor gave me a court dog as a gift at the winter festival, after I told him I wouldn’t know what to do with an orchid or a perfume or the other typical royal presents for a court lady. She’s a little princess… I think she still believes _ I _ was his gift to _ her _.”

“Ambassador Ross is right, Bibi is snobby.” Alphonse was grinning too and all his attention was back on Hawkeye, which gave Roy another chance to stare at him again and try to figure out where the hollow-eyed, scraggly child from the Promised Day had disappeared to. “I thought all the court dogs would be like the dog I grew up with but they’re all so furry. And clingy.”

“And you’re over in my rooms all the time, letting her cling to you,” Ambassador Ross said. “It must be difficult.” She glanced down at her watch and her eyebrows rose. “Sorry, General Mustang, I’m going to have to bow out. I wanted to be here to greet you, but they scheduled an emergency meeting for me with the emperor’s ambassadors this morning. I apologize for my terrible manners, sir, but Al can help you into the cars and show you the rest of the way.” She made a quick comment to Alphonse in Xingese, saluted Roy, and slipped back over the barrier into the crowd as quickly as she’d come.

The Major looked after her and then back at Roy with a particular expression he had learned to read as mingled interest and concern, but she made no comment on Ross’ sudden departure. 

“What was that?” Roy murmured to Alphonse, suddenly conscious of the rest of the party moving past them with their luggage, his new bodyguards not too far beyond them.

“Nothing really,” Alphonse said. Something on Roy’s face must have shown his surprise or concern because Alphonse’s eyebrows quirked up a little then with an answering concern, his eyes brightening in the sun when they widened. “Sorry. Nothing to do with Amestris, or anything you need to worry about. Ambassador Ross has always had the court’s favor even before Ling -- Emperor Yao -- came into power, and there was something the officials wanted to consult her about. I think they thought she could help in some way. You’ll hear about it later this week.”

“If you’re sure,” Roy said, but the hairs on the back of his neck were still prickling at her swift departure. Something about it undercut the brightness of the sun and the cheerful fascination of the crowd.

“General Mustang!” Hirsch had come up by Roy’s elbow without him noticing, Quintin in tow, and Roy just stopped his flinch at the suddenness. “Your car is ready, sir. O’Hannigan will take your things.”

O’Hannigan had Roy’s things in hand before Roy could protest, and he was summarily marched to the long black car and his things piled into the boot, Hawkeye and Alphonse trailing behind with Hawkeye’s luggage. Hirsch put Roy in the middle seat in the back and sat Quintin to his left. “O’Hannigan will ride shotgun, and I will take your other side,” she informed him. “You know Professor Keyes doesn’t want to take any chances.”

Alphonse pulled open the shotgun door and hopped in as Hawkeye slid past Hirsch and into the seat at Roy’s right. Hirsch’s eyebrows narrowed imperceptibly. 

“Ms. Hirsch,” Roy said, feeling he had to make a speech of some kind. She made him miss Havoc terribly, though it wouldn’t have been fair to ask Havoc to come. “I appreciate your concern, and Professor Keyes’ concern, but in all honesty I really don’t think it’s warranted. Look at these people. Look at any of Ambassador Ross’ reports from the past year. Really, I shouldn’t even have dragged the poor Major along with me.” He chuckled, meaning to be self-deprecating, but Hirsch didn’t laugh, her pale eyes as cool as flint.

“With all due respect, sir,” she said softly. “Professor Keyes thinks we should be cautious.”

“With all due respect, Professor Keyes can raise that issue with me,” Roy said, impatience making him short. “Ms. Hirsch, Mr. O’Hannigan, take the next car. Thank you.”

They drove slowly through the city through a bumpy, winding road over sand-colored paving stones. A good-sized crowd moved around them and before them, adults peering in at them curiously and children waving, parting reluctantly around the car as it moved forward. A few children shot past on bicycles. 

Wishing he had been quick enough to pull Percy into the car with them instead of Quintin, Roy craned his neck and squinted out at the buildings they passed. Most of them looked like shops, marked with brightly decorated signs bearing characters he couldn’t make head nor tail of. The larger shops at least had windows, so he could tell what they were by their wares -- rugs, clothing, books, pottery, books, something that looked like a cross between an apothecary and a library, a restaurant accompanied by a delicious smell of something like chicken soup… Roy wondered if he could get Alphonse to ask the driver to stop.

As though hearing his thoughts, Alphonse glanced back. “Did you see the alkahestry shop back there?” he asked. “It was the one that looked sort of like an Amestrian pharmacy, next to the bookstore.”

“I think so.” Roy was still distracted by the smell of the restaurant. “I can’t tell what any of these places are.”

Alphonse gave him a sympathetic look. “No Xingese?”

“Only as much as I could pick up in the last month,” Roy said with a wry smile. “Unfortunately. My aunt raised me, and she didn’t have much contact with my mother’s side of the family in Xing. It didn’t matter to me when I was a boy but I wish I’d had that now.”

Next to him, Quintin made a funny sound, like a stifled laugh. Roy looked at him curiously.

“Sorry, sir.” One corner of Quintin’s lip curled up in an odd half-grin. He pushed the hair out of his eyes and ducked his head to look out the window. “I guess -- it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Roy opened his mouth, a question hovering on his lips, only for the driver to cut in with a loud comment in Xingese to Alphonse.

“We’re almost at the first gate,” Alphonse said in Amestrian, glancing from Hawkeye to Roy. “I told Ling to bring some people there to take your things. Cars don’t go in.”

The golden palace gate rose high in a soaring stone wall carved with trees and flowers and strange creatures. Oddly, it stood open. A small crowd had gathered to watch them arrive, people who looked like the rest of the people in the town, and they wandered in and out of the great gate seemingly at will.

“I thought this was the palace,” Roy muttered to Hawkeye, who was still staring up at it as they left the car.

“It’s the first gate,” Alphonse said, overhearing them. That didn’t mean anything to Roy. His face must have shown his confusion. “Everyone is allowed inside the first gate now. Before the second gate it’s just the avenue and part of the courtyard, and some ceremonial gardens, nothing that needs to be secure, but people couldn’t go in and out before. That was one of the first changes.” Alphonse smiled to himself. 

A group of men and women in colorful robes stood aside from the rest of the crowd. Alphonse waved them over as the other cars pulled up behind and introduced them all to Roy in quick succession. They each shook his hand enthusiastically and went off to help with the baggage. 

Roy walked up the wide stone avenue through the gardens and outer courts, the others with him momentarily forgotten. Far off on either side of him the outer walls reached up to the sky, strong and foreboding. Little ceremonial gardens sprouted up at intervals along the avenue, small trees and clumps of flowers and pools of water offering themselves as distractions from the grandiose architecture, but he barely noticed them. 

Alphonse got them through the second gate, a smaller, more intricately carved doorway in an equally impressive wall, guarded by armed sentries in short bright-colored robes. The great avenue beyond it was bordered with flowers and creeping vines along the wall, softening the impression. They climbed a long flight of low marble stairs to reach the third gate, where Alphonse vouched for the party again and led them through.

Beyond that gate was an open courtyard and beyond the courtyard, buildings, but it was the people in the courtyard who caught Roy’s attention: they dressed differently than the people who had been waiting at the train station or by the first gate. There were men in short dark red and blue and purple robes who carried themselves formally, embroidered creatures shining gold and red and silver on the backs of the robes. There were also men and women among them like flowers in bright-colored robes, long and flowing, like the ones he had seen in pictures. He would have stopped and introduced himself, but the rest of the group was hurrying on. 

Alphonse directed them around to the side of the big buildings in front of the courtyard and in a blur they moved past fountains, statues, shrubbery, and an assortment of smaller buildings. They halted before a long hall of dark wood. A man in a dark red robe with a dragon embroidered on the back came out and spoke to Alphonse and then Percy in rapid Xingese.

“This is where we’re staying!” Percy called. “The courtiers will arrange your things inside for you. Come on, I’ll show you to your rooms -- one at a time, please --”

Roy moved to follow the rush of his entourage into the hall but Hawkeye shook her head and glanced at Alphonse.

“Emperor Yao requested an audience with you when you arrived,” he said. “I can take you there now if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, it would be my pleasure,” Roy responded automatically. “Shoot me,” he added under his breath to Hawkeye, who didn’t dignify him with a response. Hirsch, O’Hannigan, and Quintin clustered behind him with an air of expectation; he ignored them resolutely.

Alphonse led the five of them back the way they had come through the smaller residential buildings, back to the wide courtyard. This time instead of going around the towering buildings in the center of the palace complex Alphonse led them up another flight of low marble stairs onto the elevated platform where the largest, most elaborate building stood. Massive wood pillars held it up, so large Roy could only imagine they must be made from whole trees. Supported by the pillars, a great golden roof glinted in the sunlight, its eaves carved to look like ghouls and strange creatures. 

Inside the palace was dark, the air still and heavy with incense. Roy blinked rapidly, forcing his vision to adjust. Gold glittered in the flickering lamplight: red and gold tapestries hanging on the walls, gold ornaments dangling from the ceiling, gilded pillars carved with snakelike, opulent dragons, and at the end of the room the pillars lined, a golden throne, surrounded by delicate golden incense burners.

The man sitting on the throne looked nothing like the gangly fifteen-year-old who occupied a few of Roy’s vague memories, but the air about him and the easy, secret smile when Alphonse presented them were far more familiar. “General Mustang!” he exclaimed when Roy bowed. “You really mustn’t. It’s good to have you here.”

“Thank you for hosting us,” Roy said, standing, “and for your gracious invitation.”

“It’s the least I could do for friends of Xing,” Emperor Yao said with another enigmatic smile. “Ambassador Ross has been a great help to us. This is long overdue.”

Roy could feel Hirsch’s eyes boring into his back, and the attention of Yao’s courtiers -- his focus had been drawn by the throne. He hadn’t noticed the people moving around the edges of the room and behind the pillars, murmuring curiously at the sight of them. Nobody stepped forward to greet them.

“-- going to be in talks with my officials for the next week,” Emperor Yao was saying. Roy pulled his attention back. “It was unprecedented, but I apologize for my poor manners. Everyone here has been instructed to take care of you and your people, General. We’ll talk later on in the month, and I’ll try to redeem myself as a host.” He laughed shortly.

The hall came alive with soft conversation as Alphonse led them out, but still nobody approached. Roy’s hair prickled with the feeling of being watched, and the silence that curtained the six of them off as they departed. Outside, the sunlight dazzled him.


	2. Chapter 2

When Roy woke the next morning he lay for a minute with his eyes closed, trying to tell what had changed about the sounds. The mornings before he had woken with the sounds of the train rumbling and creaking under him and the slight shaking of his mattress, unchanged from the night before; in his apartment in Central City he would hear the sound of someone running down the stairs or walking along the hallway outside, and the children fighting in the room above him, and the cars going by in the street below. Here nothing moved. The world around him lay in silence, broken briefly by the low whistle of an unfamiliar bird and -- when he listened carefully -- the rattle of a breeze against the screens that walled off his room from the outdoors.

Roy opened his eyes to soft sunlight through the screens. In that filtered light and silence he washed, shaved, and dressed. When he left the room O’Hannigan towered over him at the door. It was disconcerting, not like finding Hawkeye there, but he knew Hirsch and Keyes had probably put him up to it so he gave him a nod and continued down the hall. O’Hannigan fell into line behind him. Had he been out there all night?

Tea had been set out in the main hall on a long, low table, along with baskets of fruit and some kind of porridge and biscuits too from the look of it. Hawkeye was waiting for him at the near end of the table, sipping a cup of tea. Keyes, Hirsch, and a few of the researchers sat at the far end and spoke to each other in low voices.

Maybe it was too early for confrontation, but the feeling of O’Hannigan looming behind him and the uncomfortable thought of him looming like that outside Roy’s door all night, unasked for, overcame Roy’s hunger for the moment. He went over and sat next to Keyes, ignoring the look Hawkeye shot him as he passed.

Keyes was shuffling through a stack of paperwork -- research proposals, as far as Roy could tell. When he sat down next to her she glanced over with a quick, polite smile then turned back to her work.

“Professor Keyes,” Roy said. A few of the other researchers looked at him and he wondered if that had been too loud. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper, feeling ridiculous. “Good morning.”

She kept reading. “Good morning, General. Did you sleep well?”

“Very, but waking up to a large man outside my door armed to the teeth detracted something from the experience. No offense, O’Hannigan.” He looked up over his shoulder. O’Hannigan was impassive. He looked back at Keyes, who showed no sign of hearing. “Don’t you have any cute girls you could put out there instead, Professor?”

Keyes exhaled slowly and set down the paper she was holding. “General Mustang, we’ve discussed this. Multiple times. Not only you and I, but the convention who planned this trip, the delegates, your campaign organizers -- it’s difficult for me to believe that you of all people would jeopardize your belief in Amestris’ future just to avoid, what, a man outside your door?”

“We did discuss it. I thought that was why Major Hawkeye was invited.” He was still half-whispering. He must have sounded absurd.

“I don’t mean to cast any doubt on the Major’s capability, but surely you can’t expect her to take responsibility for you at all hours of the day and night,” Keyes said, not looking at him. He could feel the frustration in the tenseness of her shoulders, the furrows between her eyebrows growing deeper. 

“Why are we even worried about the night?” Roy gestured to the ornamented hall around them, the soaring ceiling, the oak wood table replete with food and drink. “Emperor Yao has signed trade agreements and peace policies with Amestris. It was the first thing he did when he came into power. When Ambassador Ross suggested this diplomatic mission to him, he took the first step and invited us before we even made a request. If the convention truly believed there was anything to fear here, they wouldn’t have sent me in the first place.”

“They didn’t send you. None of them wanted you to go.” Keyes reached out and riffled through another stack of papers, pulling out a telegram. “General Marin was after me asking for hourly updates until we got out of range of regular communication.”

“They wouldn’t have been persuaded to send anyone _ besides _me if that were true.” Roy looked around. The rest of the company was beginning to slowly filter into the room, drawn by the smell of hot food. “You don’t send a whole entourage of civilians to make nice with a hostile power.”

“They’re hardly an entourage.” Keyes picked up her teacup and sipped slowly. Her eyes were still on the papers before her. “These people are here for their own reasons.”

“Well, why don’t you put Hirsch in charge of keeping them safe, then,” Roy muttered, perfectly aware of how unreasonable he was being. He could feel Hawkeye staring him down from the end of the table, willing him to shut his mouth.

“Nobody in Xing stands to gain anything from the death of a librarian. You’re different. You don’t know how the people here feel about a political candidate from a foreign power coming to their land to strengthen his cause.” Keyes sighed and finally looked up at him, her dark eyes bright with sincerity. “I can’t make you accept this, but I can do my best to keep you safe.”

“We don’t have anything to fear from these people,” Roy said shortly. “You and I should know the dangers of that way of thinking by now.”

Keyes gave a little shrug and turned her gaze back down to her work. “I’ll have your bodyguards relax their attention within the palace walls -- during the day. I know you didn’t want them here, but my duty on this mission is to keep you safe and this is the best way the convention and I know to do it.”

Roy ran a hand through his hair. “I know that, Keyes.” He hadn’t meant to challenge her. Maybe this was all just his projection. Maybe her pragmatism reminded him too much of himself. Her participation in this mission might be her own attempt at redemption -- reaching out an open hand where once she’d held a clenched fist. He swallowed his other arguments against the guards’ presence, stood up, and went back over to Hawkeye.

While he was focused on Keyes, Percy Kwan had joined Hawkeye at the other end of the table. Roy wondered how the man always seemed so relaxed and yet so put-together, his smile smooth and effortless as the wagging of a dog’s tail. He was laughing over something Hawkeye was saying to him. When Roy approached Percy looked up and grew more serious, but that soft smile remained on his face, handsome and perpetually delighted. Roy was reminded all over again of how glad he was to have him here, even beyond the thought that without him they’d all have to rely on Keyes for interpretation.

“Good morning, General!” The morning light caught the copper-red of Percy’s eyes. “Everything all right with the Professor?”

“As right as it can be.” Roy sat down next to Hawkeye and reached for the porridge and biscuits. “I need to talk to Ambassador Ross.” If anyone’s experience could be used to persuade Keyes that the Xingese people were not a threat, hers could.

“Well, eat up and let’s go find her!” Percy looked around the room with a theatrically over-exaggerated turn of his head, then back at Roy and Hawkeye, glancing conspiratorially between them. “Nobody else has realized I’m free today, so I’m at your command. For now. When these scientists remember they can’t read Xingese medical journals without me they’ll be out for blood.”

As soon as they had finished breakfast they began the slow process of tracking down Ross. Percy made a beeline for the lady courtiers’ and concubines’ quarters -- “They tend to know where everybody is anyway, but your ambassador is especially popular” -- and began his research.

After a long animated conversation with one of the Yao courtiers, who despite her unfamiliar robes and makeup reminded Roy of nobody more than Vanessa, Percy turned to Roy and said, “Yawen says Ambassador Ross has been meeting with the emperor and his advisors since an hour before sunrise, but she can take us to her dog.”

“I like dogs,” Roy said. “Hawkeye, what do you think?”

“I wouldn’t turn down the chance, sir,” she said. 

Yawen led them all out from the residential areas, past clumps of rhododendrons and hydrangeas and cultivated beds of delicate little flowers Roy didn’t recognize. This time they didn’t go back toward the palaces; they turned and went out a hidden gate to the west and through a small stand of bamboo into a place without buildings where small grassy hills sloped down to ponds and streams, and bigger flowerbeds stretched out alongside the path. They crossed a bridge over a larger stream that ran down into what looked like a little forest.

“This is one of the emperor’s gardens,” Percy explained as Yawen continued down the path toward the forest. “There are others around the north and east gates, but the western one is the largest. The scholars and philosophers in residence usually live in gardeners’ huts out here. Traditionally it’s considered more humble.”

Roy would never have expected anything like this to grow in the middle of a sprawling city like Xianzai. Of course East and Central had parks, but this was something far beyond that. He looked up and saw the trees against the open sky, no soaring buildings or telephone wires to be seen. In the stream running beside the path, great fish flashed in the dappled sunlight like red and white jewels. He heard no sound of the world beyond, marketplaces or cars running or people shouting, only the whispering wind in the branches and the flowing water and every once in a while the chirp of a bird.

Ahead of them Yawen stopped suddenly and tilted her head to the side. She stood like that for a moment, listening, the blue and purple silk robes flowing over her to the ground like water, then gave a short whistle.

There was silence for a minute, then a rustling and a high-pitched, excited bark. A small dog came rushing up the path toward them, long creamy-gold hair flying out behind it, and a second later Alphonse Elric appeared behind it, jogging up the path. He was dressed like the people of Xianzai had been the other day, a loose long-sleeved shirt and relaxed trousers, eyes bright and hair a little bit of a mess. “Bibi!” he called, but the dog was already leaping up at Yawen, circling her and moving on to Percy and Hawkeye and Roy in quick succession to greet them.

Alphonse came to a halt before them. “Sorry,” he said in Amestrian, and added something in quick Xingese to Yawen, who laughed. “She gets excited.”

“Bibi?” Hawkeye was already leaning down to pat the dog, who jumped up again, licking at her face. She didn’t pull away but her eyebrows rose. “I see your master has been unattentive.”

“Ambassador Ross tried,” Alphonse said. “Bibi just likes to meet people.”

“Bibi?” Roy crouched down too, trying not to get caught up in the strange adultness of Alphonse Elric all over again. He held out his hand and the dog scurried away from Hawkeye to come and lick it, tail wagging double time. “She looks like a mop.”

Alphonse and Percy laughed, and Percy made a short comment to Yawen, whose bell-like giggle joined theirs a second later. “She’s of the noblest line in Xing,” Alphonse said. “Of dogs, anyway. I don’t think she would appreciate that.”

“This dog needs to be trained,” Hawkeye said, reaching out to stroke Bibi’s back as Bibi licked at Roy’s fingers and leaped up to get at his face too.

“Oh, come on, Major, she’s sweet.” Roy ruffled the dog’s ears and ran his hand under her chin. “The noblest line in Xing. You don’t train a princess.”

“I have her for the rest of the day until Ambassador Ross gets out of her meetings,” Alphonse said. “You can try if you want, Major Hawkeye. I don’t think it will work.”

“I’d like to, if the general hasn’t planned anything else.” Hawkeye glanced up at Roy, questioning.

“I told you, I love dogs.” He had planned to spend his first morning here debriefing with Ross and that clearly wasn’t going to happen before her meeting ended, so they might as well wait here until she came around to collect her dog. It would give him a chance to look like less of a fool in front of Alphonse, and possibly prevent him from writing Ed about Roy’s behavior the first chance he got.

Percy said something to Yawen in Xingese and then looked down at Roy. “If you don’t mind, General, Yawen and I might go back to the library. Professor Keyes won’t be happy if she’s the only person there all morning with people running around throwing every kind of book and who knows what at her.”

“Of course.” Roy waved him away. “Thank you, Percy. You don’t know how much you’re appreciated.”

“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.” Percy grinned and headed back up the path. Yawen leaned in, gave Alphonse a quick kiss on the cheek, and followed him.

Alphonse’s smile quirked up on one side as he watched the two of them go, then turned his gaze back to Roy, Hawkeye, and the dog. The sunlight through the leaves caught his eyes in a dazzling way, touching them with green and gold, and Roy had the uncomfortable thought that on any man other than Edward Elric’s little brother, it would have been devastatingly attractive. He looked back at Bibi quickly and leaned down so she could cover his face in kisses. That wasn’t a line of thought he was interested in pursuing.

“Alphonse, does this dog respond to any commands?” Hawkeye demanded over his head.

“She knows what dinner means,” Alphonse said. “In Amestrian and Xingese. Ambassador Ross likes to tell the courtiers that Bibi is bilingual.”

“Well, that will be helpful,” Hawkeye said. “Bibi, come!”

The dog cocked an ear and looked at her through long creamy bangs. Roy suppressed the urge to laugh. 

“Bibi,” Alphonse said, snapped his fingers, and pointed at Hawkeye. Bibi raised herself from the ground one dainty step at a time and followed Hawkeye down the path, her little tail wagging.

Alone with Alphonse Elric, Roy had no idea what to say. He pushed his hands into his pockets and hoped the smile on his face appeared more affable than stupid. With Ed he would simply have insulted one of his latest publications and gone from there, but that seemed inappropriate, and he’d put his foot in his mouth one too many times already.

“How is Brother?” Alphonse asked, natural as breathing, and Roy wondered with sudden panic whether alkahestrists tended to develop telepathic skills over time. Still, he was grateful for something he could answer.

“Ed’s doing fine,” Roy said. “He dropped by my office last time he was in Central. Apparently a puppy has been added to the Rockbell clan… he seemed unhappy.”

Alphonse smiled. “He said that in his last letter! Winry thought raising a dog would give the children some responsibility, but he says nobody picks up after it half the time and Winry physically _ can’t _because she’s due in a month, and she’s out visiting patients most of the day anyway, so he’s father to two grade-school children and a puppy.”

“I should send Hawkeye out for a visit.” Roy glanced meaningfully after her. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“Of course not.” Alphonse’s eyes were alive with laughter. “Actually, Ed mentioned that you and the major used to come by the house more often. He keeps complaining that gearing up for your campaign must have gotten to your head.” 

“Tell him it’s nothing to do with my campaign and I’m just tired of arguing theory with a second-rate academic,” Roy said. “His nine-year-old has a better grasp of array philosophy than he does. And you can tell him I said that too.”

“General Mustang!” That wide grin broke out across Alphonse’s face again and he tilted his head back, the sun catching his eyes. Roy wished that would stop happening. It felt uncomfortable. “But you _ are _campaigning, right?”

“I will be, this election season. It’s still more than a year away.” He pulled his hands from his pockets, feeling silly and awkward. “That isn’t why we stopped visiting, though -- they moved me back to Central after the autonomy vote last year. On the train from East to Ishval you have to go through Resembool, so we dropped in more frequently. I guess he got attached.” He stopped, then remembered something else. “Oh, and it’s Roy, please. You’re not my subordinate anymore. It makes me feel old.”

“Technically I never was your subordinate,” Alphonse said. “I’m just trying to show a little respect. I doubt you get that from Ed, so I felt like maybe I should make up for it. Really, General Mustang, from some of the things he says in his letters I feel sorry for you.”

For a second Roy thought he was serious, but when he met Alphonse’s eyes they were laughing again. He laughed too. “He’s not getting invited to any state dinners, that’s for sure. I already told him I would invite Winry alone because she’s the only one in that family I trust not to slip up and call me ‘General Bastard’ in front of some influential sweet old lady. Or Fuhrer President Grumman.” And that was without worrying about sweet old ladies who might turn out to _ be _Fuhrer President Grumman.

“Already planning your state dinners, that’s brave,” Alphonse murmured, raising his eyebrows. The expression seemed so strange on his face; the voice wasn’t the same, it was deeper, but the intonation was familiar enough that part of Roy kept expecting to see the suit of armor standing before him. Not that he would prefer it -- this Alphonse had a much nicer face. Still, it felt odd.

“Funny, Hawkeye said that too,” Roy mused. “I think it’s just my natural optimism.”

“Well, I’ll make Ed vote for you.”

“Good luck with that. He’s still trying to hang onto that 520 cenz of mine.” Roy pulled a face.

Alphonse paused, looking like he was about to say something. Then a frenzy of barking erupted down the path, followed quickly by Hawkeye’s voice, and more barking. “I should go check on Bibi,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Left unsupervised much longer the Major will probably traumatize the poor thing for life,” Roy said, and followed Alphonse down into the forest. 

\-----

Ross didn’t show her face for the rest of the day, or the day after, or the day after that. After consulting with Alphonse and Percy, who in turn consulted with other members of the court and let him know that she was still meeting with the emperor and his officials, Roy abandoned his business plans, wondering if he ought to feel more guilty about that than he actually did.

Alphonse dropped by the Amestrians’ residential hall on the morning of the third day, appearing just as Roy finished a bowl of rice porridge and resigned himself, not unhappily, to a life of politics-free abandon.

“I’m out of tea,” Alphonse announced when Hawkeye greeted him. “Ambassador Ross asked Lady Yawen to watch Bibi today so I was going to go into the city to get some more, and I thought I’d see if either of you wanted to come.”

“We’d have to bring Percy,” Roy said, not fully thinking. “Or Professor Keyes, for translation.”

“I can probably take care of that for you,” Alphonse said, with a smile just barely honest enough that it couldn’t be described as a smirk. “I think.”

They made it out into the city as quickly as they could considering that Hirsch caught them at the door and insisted on herself and both the other bodyguards tagging along. Then they had to wait for Quintin, who was allegedly shaving (Roy wondered what the kid even had to shave). Finally, though, they were ready, and Alphonse led them out a gate in the east wall and down a winding path through more forest gardens heavy with the scent of jasmine, out another gate and into the city of Xianzai.

There were fewer cars, and more bicycles, and the clothing and people looked different at first glance, but without the difference in the smells from the restaurants and the writing on the shop signs Roy could have been walking down a back street in East or Central. When they rounded a corner and emerged onto the main road he had to stop for a moment and take it in: the people rushing back and forth, bright banners hanging in storefronts and on lampposts advertising who knew what, some kind of pastry shop here, a bookstore there… all in one breath it seemed so familiar and yet different. Like watching Alphonse, in a way, as though Central were the suit of armor and downtown Xianzai were the young man.

A masked person, dressed in black, peered around the side of a building across the street and darted back out of sight, an urgency in their movements that made it clear they didn’t want to be seen. Roy’s head jerked up and he stared after them.

“What is it?” Alphonse and Hawkeye asked almost together.

“I thought I saw someone.” Roy couldn’t be sure now if the person had looked at them or if he was just imagining things. “A person. I don’t know, never mind.” Xianzai’s people couldn’t vindicate Keyes now, of all times.

Alphonse’s eyes narrowed. “What did they look like?”

“Not like any of these people. They were in a red and white mask, so I didn’t know…” and he pulled up short, because Alphonse was smiling.

“Don’t worry about that!” Alphonse said. “That’s just a Yao guard. They’ll go out into the city every once in a while, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ling -- Emperor Yao had a few of them following us specifically. I mentioned I would be inviting you out and he likes to be careful.”

“How do you know it was a Yao guard?” _ And not just some other creep in a mask _, Roy’s mind helpfully supplied, but he wasn’t sure that would impress Alphonse and anyway it wasn’t necessary.

“Oh, it’s the mask,” Alphonse said airily. “The elite guards of every clan wear a different mask, to distinguish them from each other. The Yao guards wear the masks of spirits and demons -- they’re always red, white, and black, easy to tell apart. Ji guards wear frog masks and Ren guards wear skull masks, I think, and I want to say Huan guards wear bear masks?”

“Really,” Roy said, wondering what Hirsch would do if he tried to put her in a frog mask. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, Lan Fan told me. She’s the emperor’s bodyguard,” Alphonse added to Roy’s look of confusion. “You won’t see her around unless she wants you to, but she’s in charge of palace security and does a great job. She’s the one who alerted the emperor to the Huan clan officials leaving before they were able to get all the way out.” He looked from side to side and crossed the street, Roy and Hawkeye following behind, the three Amestrian bodyguards trailing after them.

Roy kept his eyes open for other Yao guards after that, but he only saw one more, maybe the same one, for a moment after they turned on to the market street before the crowd swallowed them up. He couldn’t decide whether it was comfortable or disconcerting knowing there were eyes on him even when he waded through the crowd after Alphonse to the tea shop door, and when he placed his order, and when the three of them sat and drank their tea together in the musty, incense-laden air of the shop by a dusty window, his own guards hovering at the table beside them.

“And what about them?” Alphonse asked quietly when he had bought his new bag of loose-leaf tea and they turned out of the busy market street on their way back. He inclined his head slightly back in the direction of Hirsch and the other two, looking between Roy and Hawkeye.

“That is the work of the enigmatic Professor Sela Keyes,” Roy said.

Alphonse’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Is Professor Keyes not just one of your translators? She’s been in the royal library from breakfast until dinnertime for every day that you’ve been here, according to Lan Fan.”

Choosing to ignore for the moment the implication that their movements were all being watched and reported on, Roy let out a slow breath. “No, she’s the organizer of this whole affair. At least all of it that isn’t Hawkeye and myself.”

“Well, it’s nice that you let some of your scholars come along. Emperor Yao liked it.” Alphonse was quiet for a moment, thinking. “But what does she have to do with those guys?”

“To be fair to Professor Keyes,” Roy said, “she isn’t just a scholar. Before her retirement in 1917 she was Brigadier General Sela Keyes, strategist and military genius largely responsible for major Amestrian victories in Creta and Ishval.” His mouth twisted. “A master of international affairs, really. I can see why they sent her.”

“Oh,” Alphonse said. 

“She is a genius,” Roy added, so as not to be unfair or give Hirsch anything unsavory to report back. He wasn’t sure if she was within earshot. “I don’t dispute that. She knows five languages and oversaw the signing of our most recent treaties with Creta and Aerugo, and she did offer to come with us before the convention asked her. I’m the last person who ought to be judging someone for their past actions, anyway.”

“If she retired and became a professor, maybe that’s what she really wanted to do,” Alphonse suggested. “Like you said, she did come here.”

“I don’t know, they still call her in to consult whenever things start getting heated on the border,” Roy said. “And you haven’t read any of her books. _ Reconsidering the Virtue of Nationalism in Military Philosophy _, screeds on just cause, all kinds of eugenics which she doesn’t even have the academic background to get into…”

“The point is, she’s paranoid,” Hawkeye broke in. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t know if she came here looking for a fight but she’s obviously expecting one.”

“Here?” Alphonse looked at Hawkeye, then at Roy, then looked around them. They had turned on to a back street again. A group of old ladies were exchanging gossip under the eaves of a porcelain store, while children shouted and played with hoops and sticks in the street. A man stuck his head out of a second-story window and yelled down at the children; they scattered, laughing.

Roy looked back at Hirsch, O’Hannigan, and Quintin. Quintin’s eyes were on the children and O’Hannigan’s were on the ground, but Hirsch’s steel blue gaze met his straight on. He held that gaze for a moment, thinking, _ Here? _

\-----

Ross surprised him that afternoon, coming up behind him suddenly in the main room of the residential hall. “I’m sorry, General,” she said, out of breath, as she settled down onto a cushion next to where he and Hawkeye sat at the low table. Her eyes were bright with energy but faint dark circles had begun to form under them. “Ready to debrief when you are, sir.”

“Ross,” Roy greeted her, trying to hide his surprise at her sudden appearance under a pleased, Grumman-ly tone of voice. He liked to think he was getting very good at that. “Don’t apologize. Where have you been?”

Instead of answering Ross shot a pointed look at Hirsch, who stood at attention beside the door, staring her down. Roy wished Hirsch wouldn’t do that. “Can we speak privately, sir?”

“Of course.” His room would work as well as anywhere else, he supposed. To preempt Hirsch offering to tag along, he added, “Hawkeye, come with us, if you don’t mind.”

Hawkeye lifted Bibi off her lap and stood. “Bibi, heel,” she said, and the three of them went down the hall to Roy’s room together with Bibi following close behind.

“Hawkeye has been working her magic on your dog,” Roy said when the door had closed behind the two of them, with Hawkeye and Bibi on the other side. He sat down at the side table by the window screen and gestured for Ross to sit as well. “I apologize.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s probably good for Bibi.” Ross sighed and took the other chair. “Really, sir, I should be the one apologizing. I would have made time for this earlier, but there was an urgent need that none of us thought could wait.”

“Are you allowed to tell me about it?”

“Emperor Yao asked me to,” Ross said. “It has to do with you. Not directly,” she added quickly -- Roy guessed his face must have betrayed his consternation. “With Amestris. With all… this.” She gestured to the room around them.

“I told the convention that it didn’t have to be a whole affair,” Roy said, his annoyance with Keyes rising anew in his heart. “It was just supposed to be Hawkeye and I, maybe a few researchers, nothing like this.”

“That’s not the problem. It’s the fact that any of you are here at all.” Ross sighed. “Since Emperor Yao took power, the noble clans have mostly lived at peace with each other. It’s something Yao is praised for -- well, he’s considered to be divinely blessed so people are always going to have to praise him, but his diplomacy is something that even his rivals are actually impressed with. For the first time in a long time he’s given the clans of Xing a sense of themselves as a united ruling force, or at least a sense that they could be.”

“Am I missing something? That sounds like a good thing to me.” That sense of unity was, in fact, something Roy had begun to notice in Amestris again too, and something he hoped to encourage. He ought to ask the emperor about it.

“It is, for Xing,” said Ross. “Only for Xing. Some people, especially among the ruling clan members, aren’t happy with how enamored Emperor Yao appears to have become with the world beyond Xing. They praise him for leading the country into an era of peace, culture, and riches, but when he attempts to share it with the world they draw back. The railroad was the first problem, but he pointed out how beneficial to trade it would be and nobody would speak openly against that. His formal invitation to you crossed the line.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The Huan clan, the family of the previous emperor -- Emperor Yao’s father -- withdrew their court presence last week. It wasn’t talked about much, for fear of disrespecting either party involved.” Ross rubbed her temples, and suddenly looked more exhausted than she had out in the hall. “They didn’t even announce their departure, just packed their things and headed out one morning, which is when Emperor Yao found out about it. Four of the past ten emperors before Yao were of the Huan clan, and they hold a large territory in the north of Xing with an army to match it. He knew they were dissatisfied with his foreign policy but I think he hadn’t realized the extent. His informants in the Huan capitol say they’re gathering forces there, with talk of preparing for a siege, or an attack.”

Roy stared. “And this is because of us? I would never have come if --”

“No, it has nothing to do with you,” Ross almost snapped, then bit her lip. “Sorry, sir. I don’t want you to think it has anything to do with your campaign, or Keyes’ research, or that you aren’t welcome here. Nobody objected to that. It was Yao’s decision to extend his invitation and his favor that upset them. If he had extended that favor to a traveling circus the reaction would have been the same.”

“Well…” Roy stood up and paced across the room, then back. “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

“You can offer your support,” she said, and set her hands on the table, her gaze resolute. “The day after tomorrow the Yao ambassadors and I will set out for the Huan capitol. This conflict doesn’t need to be resolved with bloodshed.”

Ross’ words rang in Roy’s ears for the rest of the afternoon and when he went to sleep that night, and the next morning he ate breakfast in silence with Hawkeye beside him, too preoccupied with Ross and the Huan clan to complain about finding Quintin outside his bedroom door when he had first stepped out. He wanted to ask more, to find where it all could have gone wrong, to see if he could offer anything to Ross or the emperor that could possibly be of any help. Deep down he knew it was useless, but he couldn’t stop trying -- especially not for Ross.

The air was still misty and the grass wet with dew when he and Hawkeye left the great hall. He couldn’t go out into the city today, knowing all this. What he needed was to speak with Ross again and see what assistance he could offer her beyond the empty promise of his support. As he and Hawkeye made their way aimlessly through the residential buildings he mentioned it to her.

She blinked and was silent for a minute. “You could speak with Alphonse,” she finally suggested. “He might know more about the situation.” 

“You only say that because you think he has the dog again,” Roy muttered, but the idea took some weight off his heart and he turned toward the garden.

While Hawkeye put Bibi through her paces in front of the hut, Roy and Alphonse sat beside the stream that flowed through the grassy clearing in the back. From the outside, looking at the house, it seemed more like a gardener’s shed than a proper place to live. The Rockbells’ house in Resembool, which he had grown to naturally associate with the brothers a long time ago, dwarfed Alphonse’s hut in comparison. He wondered at the difference but didn’t know how to ask about it.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he began when Alphonse looked to him. Something about the man made him incredibly uncomfortable, reminding him of that solstice dinner a few years back when he had gone to the washroom halfway through the party and discovered a stain on his tie, except in this case there was also the knowledge that the stain on his tie could have been prevented by Edward Elric bothering to send him a few pictures or some kind of warning. So to speak. “Ambassador Ross is going to meet with the Huan clan. I was curious what you knew about them.”

Alphonse blinked, the early morning sun catching in his pale lashes. “I can’t tell you much,” he said after a moment’s silence. “The Huan clan officials were always withdrawn at court, and I haven’t been here very long myself -- in Xianzai, I mean. I used to live here a long time ago, but I was with the Chang clan in the southern mountains for the last four years. Ambassador Ross is still helping me get used to court politics.” He laughed softly, leaning back to rest against the grass. “I don’t have a head for it.”

Roy thought it was unlikely that a young man like Alphonse would experience any kind of problem with court politics, or any kind of problem anywhere, but couldn’t think of how to express the compliment in a way that didn’t sound foolish. He kept it to himself. “What did that clan think about foreigners, then?”

“Well, they’re small. Their opinion isn’t very influential. But their elders liked me.” Alphonse smiled, his eyes deep golden. “I know their representatives here were happy for a group of Amestrians to join us for a while, and were in favor of the emperor’s invitation to you. But even then it’s different with just the representatives here.” He sighed. “Xianzai is… difficult compared to the Chang clan. I’m sorry, I know that isn’t what you asked.”

“No, it’s interesting. It’s helpful.” Roy struggled to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound foolish. “Is that where you learned alkahestry? The Chang clan?”

“I studied the fundamentals here in Xianzai when I first arrived, but I was mostly focused on learning Xingese and figuring everything else out. You know. The way you probably feel right now, just with no Huan clan.” Alphonse shot him a sidewise glance and a dazzling smile. “It’s so busy here too, with all the people coming and going, all the different energies -- I couldn’t begin to feel what I needed to until living with the Chang clan.”

“_ Feel _ what you needed to?” That didn’t sound like any kind of alchemy Roy had ever heard of, but then alkahestry was supposed to be different, of course.

“Alkahestry is founded on the ability to feel and manipulate _ qi _ \- the flow of energy within the earth, and every living thing.” Alphonse lifted his hand, the slender fingers spread, and placed it palm down on the grass between them. “Basically. It’s more complicated than that, but it’s how I would probably start with a beginner. Are you interested in learning?”

“I don’t have a teacher,” Roy said automatically. And anyway, he reminded himself, he didn’t know how long he would be here -- they had planned for a month at the most, and if Keyes caught wind of this Huan clan nonsense she might pack them all off back to Amestris without a second thought.

“The basics aren’t too difficult,” said Alphonse, looking at him sympathetically, which made Roy feel odd. “I can always find you some translated books to take back with you. It’s something I’ve been working on in my free time, to share the knowledge.”

“Is that feeling something you can learn from a book?” It didn’t sound like alchemy, where you had to start with learning the chemical components and drawing the array, and in any case Roy hadn’t learned a new form of alchemy for a long time. He was probably rusty. 

“Well…” Alphonse’s face brightened. “I can teach you! As long as you’re here, anyway. Although I’ve always been the student, never the teacher, so it might not be very helpful.”

The offer surprised Roy and he tried not to let it show on his face. He looked away at the stream, certain that he would embarrass himself again if he tried to answer while looking into Alphonse’s hopeful eyes. Damn Ed, this must all be his fault somehow. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” he said carefully, “I’d appreciate it, Alphonse.”

“Then we have a plan,” Alphonse said cheerfully, getting to his feet and reaching down to help Roy up (was he really getting that long in the tooth, that Alphonse Elric thought he needed help to stand?). “And General Mustang, it’s Al. Really.”

“Alphonse,” Roy said solemnly, taking his hand. He made sure to let go as soon as he was standing. “It’s _ Roy _.”

\-----

Dinner that night was a solemn affair. Emperor Yao himself hosted them in the great dining hall in his personal chambers. His chief ambassador sat to his right and Ross to his left. Far down the table, separated from Ross by a long line of officials and other ambassadors, Roy sat, chewing the prospect of her departure over with each fragrant mouthful of duck.

He was not Ross’ president or her commanding officer. He couldn’t prevent her from going. If he himself were in her place he knew he would have done the same thing. Still, he thought about the path ahead of her, imagined the long lonely stretches of mountain roads that lay before her, and longed to send something more than well wishes with her. He would go with her himself, were it not for Keyes and the certainty that she would protest.

“Excuse me,” Hawkeye murmured beside him and rose and left the table.

Perhaps Keyes would have some input, Roy thought grudgingly. A person didn’t win three wars with nothing. She had sat by his other side throughout the first courses in silence; silent disapproval of what their presence had seemingly brought about, he had worried, but maybe her thoughts ran in the same direction as his.

“I’m worried for Ambassador Ross,” he said quietly to Keyes. 

She raised an eyebrow. “There’s nothing you can do. You’re not her commanding officer. She clearly thinks this is the best way forward.” On Keyes’ other side, Percy snorted softly into his soup.

“I don’t want to stop her. I’d do the same thing in her place. I just feel like there should be something more to offer her.” Keyes would think he was even more of a fool than she already seemed to. 

“The emperor will do his best to keep her safe.” He could hear the skepticism in Keyes’ voice when she said_ the emperor _. “Percy told me they’ll be traveling with supplies, guides, Yao’s own guards --”

“What about that?” Roy interrupted, fighting to keep his voice down, though he doubted many of the Xingese officials surrounding them would understand anyway. The idea had struck him in a flash of brilliance and sudden gratitude for Keyes’ over-insistence on security. “What if I sent the Major with her?”

Both of Keyes’ eyebrows went up and she said nothing.

“Really?” Percy said from beyond her, leaning over so Roy could see his face. “Are you serious? That’s not going to help either way.”

“It’s only a thought,” Roy said, feeling immediately defensive. “I don’t think Major Hawkeye is more skilled than the emperor’s guards, I just think Ross might appreciate having one of us beside her. Someone to watch her back.” He knew he could entrust that task to Hawkeye above all. A few weeks with Hirsch on his tail would be well worth the peace of mind that would give him.

“To be frank, General, I don’t think Ambassador Ross should have been asked to go at all,” Percy said. He still smiled affably but his voice was serious. “Not that I offered my input when they were deciding, I just don’t know if you should put more of your people in that kind of danger than you can afford to.”

“Well, Percy, I don’t know if that’s fair,” Keyes said slowly into the silence that followed. “Emperor Yao is clearly comfortable sending his own people out there, and as the general has been so quick to remind us recently, the danger may not be as great as we fear.” Roy looked at her in surprise. Was Keyes actually _ agreeing _with him?

“The Huan mountains are a different place from Xianzai,” Percy said. “I wouldn’t go there if you paid me.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Keyes said, turning to Roy. “Surprisingly good, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. I hadn’t thought of it myself. You do continually point out that you think we have a surplus of guards, and I have to admit that nothing in Xianzai has given me concern so far. I… had expected a more hostile environment. That was my mistake.” She coughed softly, avoiding eye contact for a second. “Sending Major Hawkeye with the ambassador would be a touching show of support -- not only a gesture for Ambassador Ross, but to show the emperor and the people here the strength we offer each other. If Major Hawkeye agrees, I would encourage it.” 

Percy rolled his eyes and turned back to his food.

“I’ll ask her tonight,” Roy said, and took a deep breath, feeling some of his fluttering worries go to rest. He looked back down at his plate, then up at Keyes again, seeing her in a strange new light. He had been unfair to her. “Thank you, Professor Keyes. I haven’t appreciated your input the way I should have.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, picking out a delicate bite of duck with her chopsticks. The smile she gave him was surprising, quick and deft and carefully calculated as the way she moved the utensils in her hand. “You have a lot on your mind. I can’t say I envy you.”

They ate in silence after Hawkeye returned, the quiet nervous murmur of Xingese conversation around the table only broken at the end of the meal, when Emperor Yao started a round of toasts to the ambassadors’ good health and fortune on their mission. With doubt in his heart Roy stood and wished Ross luck while Percy translated. The officials around the table met his speech with a light smattering of applause, their own eyes reflecting the worry he felt. He found himself wishing Alphonse were there, to offer some piece of advice or just smile and say _ I don’t have a head for court politics _. It would have made this official farewell easier.

\-----

“Wait a minute, Major,” Roy told Hawkeye when she had walked him to his room. 

She stopped and turned, her face impassive but a question in her eyes. “Sir?”

“I want you to go with Ambassador Ross to the Huan clan,” he said, bracing himself for what he knew was to come.

“Sir,” Hawkeye said flatly, “you can’t be serious.”

“I am.” Roy met her eyes. “I won’t order you to go, but I have to request it.”

“And who will watch your back, if I do go?” Her voice was still perfectly even, but he could already pick out the confusion in it, and the obstinance. “Not Hirsch or O’Hannigan or that boy, Wang.”

“Major,” Roy said, “you know I’m going to be doing nothing here but stuffing my face and reading as many books as I can get Percy to translate for me. And pestering Alphonse Elric until he refuses to teach me alkahestry after all. You know how I am.” Sensing that she was not persuaded, he ransacked his memories for other arguments and added, “I’ll even stay in the palace if that would make you more comfortable. Emperor Yao’s guards have the place shut down. That woman, Lan Fan, who Alphonse was telling us about -- you think she’d let anything in here that wasn’t supposed to be?”

“I haven’t properly met her, sir,” Hawkeye said, though the corner of her mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I know I complained about Hirsch and her men.” Roy rubbed his eyes and brushed his hair out of his face. “Maybe I was unfair to Keyes. But they are here too. It’s not that I feel I don’t need you here. I would go with Ross myself if I could. You’re the only one I trust to do it in my place, do you understand?”

“I understand.” Hawkeye’s voice was quiet. “I hate to leave you here, sir.”

“I appreciate that,” Roy said. “People rarely tell me that. What about this? If you’ll go with Ross, I promise not to die.”

That almost got a smile out of her. “I’ll pack my things, then,” she said, turning away to go down the hall. “But I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Thank you, Major,” he said quietly, and could tell by the pause in her steps that she could hear him. “This is what we need.”

Something in his own words must have persuaded him because he slept soundly that night without interruption and woke the next morning with the first light in the cloudy sky, feeling well refreshed and almost hopeful. Keyes, the guards, and a few of the researchers were already eating breakfast out in the main hall, and they came with him to see Ross and Hawkeye on their way.

Outside the residential area as they began to pass by the great royal receiving halls, Emperor Yao joined them, a whole retinue of courtiers attending him. Ross was there alongside two of the Xingese ambassadors from last night, all of them laden with luggage and looking more haggard than Roy especially liked. Alphonse walked beside the emperor, at a distance almost unrecognizable in the Xingese formal robes he wore but for his hair; when he saw Roy and Hawkeye he waved, said something into the emperor’s ear, and hurried over to the smaller Amestrian crowd to greet them.

“You’ll take the cars to the train, which only goes part of the way,” Alphonse said to Hawkeye. “It’s all on horseback and on foot after that. Percy told us you were going last night. Ling -- Emperor Yao was happy about it, but I think Ross is worried for _ you _, General Mustang. I told her I would keep an eye on you for Hawkeye but I don’t know if that helped.” Alphonse’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and Roy found he liked the idea.

If Ross still had an issue with Hawkeye’s addition to the party, she didn’t voice it when Roy shook her hand and wished her well. She met his eyes unflinchingly and gripped his hand. “Thank you,” she said. “We won’t fail.” He thought too late he might have hugged her, but she had already moved down the line to Keyes and the researchers. 

Roy helped load Hawkeye’s bags into the boot of the long black car that stood waiting for her, and nodded to her when she followed Ross and one of the Xingese officials into the back seat. All at once the Xingese courtiers were calling farewells and waving goodbye and the cars were moving down the winding road that led up to the first gate. The sun slid out from behind a cloud as the procession moved away, glittering off roofs and windows and hubcaps. They were gone before Roy could fully realize it.

He stood there for a while after Keyes and her researchers and most of the courtiers had gone. Hirsch, Quintin, and O’Hannigan clustered behind him at what he supposed Hirsch thought was a respectful distance away; well, he was outside the palace gate, after all. Alphonse still stood beside him, looking after the cars. He wondered if Alphonse just thought he was supposed to do that, after saying all that to Ross. It would be a strange few weeks.


	3. Chapter 3

That night Roy drifted out of an uneasy dream with an odd shifting in his head and stomach like he was going to be sick. His hair stood on end. For an instant he expected gunfire, cries of ambush and the gritty taste of sand on his lips, but he lay still and no sound came. 

The room was pitch black when he opened his eyes. He faintly heard the wind rising outside and rustling in the shrubbery, making the silk screens creak in his room as he let himself remember where he was. Hard mattress beneath him, sheets touching his arms, warm humid air on his face. Xianzai. No danger. 

He felt rather than heard the slight movement above him.

Roy rolled to the side as the knife plunged down into the mattress where he had been a moment earlier. Instinct rather than thought made him kick out, his legs striking the arm attached to the knife as it fumbled and tried to draw it out. There was a pained, high-pitched sound, a breath let out in a rush. Roy was already up, tugging his gloves from beneath the pillow. 

Footsteps thudded on the other side of the bed and someone else was on him, someone large, pinning him and grabbing at his arms. Heavy breath above him. Roy hit out, aiming for where the throat ought to be. His knuckles collided with a hard unyielding surface -- _ a mask? _ He cursed through his teeth, jerked away from the hands that tried to stop him, and struck again, grinning through the second surge of pain when the person above him choked, swore, and leaned away. It was all the distraction Roy needed to wriggle the rest of the way free and leap off the bed, overturning the side table in the dark. He barely felt it strike his legs.

Hands shaking, he yanked his right glove on and struck a spark, just a small one, enough to see the Yao guards in the room: one on the bed, one standing up beside the bed, the last one by the door, their masks flashing bright red and white against black. His stomach plunged and he was in the dark again.

Somebody grabbed at his throat in the next instant and Roy leaped back, snapping a larger ribbon of flame, just a warning, his mind racing to explain the misunderstanding this had to be. The guard who had been by the bed was striking at him, fast and vicious, kunai in hand again. He put up an arm to block them and felt the knife glance off bone. Trying to recall the few tips on personal defense he’d managed to pick up from Hirsch he kicked out at their abdomen and struck. The guard grunted, high-pitched again -- _ a woman? _\-- and kept coming.

This was no misunderstanding. They had to have seen him, known who he was. Ross’s words rang in his mind: _ Some people, especially among the ruling clan members, aren’t happy with how enamored Emperor Yao has become with the world beyond Xing. _ But Ross had meant people outside the Yao clan, hadn’t she? She trusted Emperor Yao, supported him, had let his guards lead her into hostile territory… a sick rush of fear almost froze Roy to the spot. _ Ross. Hawkeye. _

The next strike went wide in the dark but came close enough for Roy to feel the breeze in its wake. He leaped to the side and fell over the table he’d upset. Swearing, he struggled to his feet and lit the damn thing up.

That made it easier, the room alive with the red light of his flame. Roy placed his back against the wall, the table burning between him and the rest of the room, and took stock in the few seconds he had. The woman with the kunai had paused for an instant. The larger guard who had been on the bed was up again, approaching from the other side. The other remained by the door. Obviously they’d realized he couldn’t escape through the screen walls without burning the whole hall to the ground.

Before Roy could fully formulate his next thought the large guard was lunging for him through the fire, pinning him to the wall by his shoulder. A fist drove the breath out of him, doubling him over. _ This one fights like an Amestrian, _ he thought in garbled curiosity as the guard stepped away and let him crumple to the floor. _ All force. _ None of the subtlety he’d seen from Yao’s guards as they tailed him through the city. Some distant part of Roy wondered at it, Yao sending someone so inept to get the dirty work done, though maybe that was all he thought of him. The fire was hot, too close to his face.

The guard with the kunai stepped forward and kicked him in the side. Roy sprawled across the floor, lungs stabbing at him as he tried to draw breath, tried to get his feet under him. He struggled for air. She knelt down beside him, lifting the knife. The fire glinted off the bright snarling lines of the Yao mask. Her eyes glittered pale blue behind it. 

_ Blue. _

Shock drove Roy to his feet in a drunken surge as she struck down at him. A line of excruciating heat blazed down his left side. He got enough control of himself to snap, a wild arc of fire leaping in the woman’s direction, not very well aimed but enough to drive her back.

Feet propelling him on their own, Roy sprinted, the pain knotting in his side as he ran. He slammed into the guard beside the door. This one fought in a flurry of aimless blows at Roy’s face, a fist glancing off his cheek, his jaw -- he ducked and hit the guard low in the solar plexus, bringing him folding in on himself the way Roy had a moment earlier. Feet hit the ground in the room behind him. He couldn’t wait. He couldn’t go without this. 

Roy gripped the edge of the Yao mask and pulled until the ties holding it gave, his heart knowing what he would see an instant before Quintin Wang blinked up at him, eyes wide and angry in the red light of Roy’s flame.

Roy dropped the mask and hit Quintin again, sending him to the floor. The large guard -- O’Hannigan, it had to be -- struck Roy from behind and he fell more than ran through the open doorway, recovering his feet in a moment of luck as O’Hannigan crashed to the floor behind him. He sprinted down the narrow passageway toward the main hall.

A shout built in his throat but he forced it back._ Sending Major Hawkeye with the ambassador would be a touching show of support _, Keyes murmured in his head. He thought of Hirsch’s eagerness, O’Hannigan’s reticence. Percy Kwan’s easy smile. The researchers’ impersonal enthusiasm. All of them chosen for him. All too happy to be here for him, to help him, to stand in the place of the men he trusted. 

Footsteps pounded in the corridor. Roy turned and sprinted out the front door.

The night sky was choked with clouds, the barest sliver of a crescent moon peering out from between them. Easier to hide, at least. He stumbled down the stairs and took the path toward the main complex as best he could remember in this dark. Looking behind himself, he saw no lanterns. He couldn’t risk a light. He tried to breathe more quietly.

Momentary watery half-light slid out through the clouds and caught a stand of rhododendron trees. Roy ducked down and into the clump of them, branches catching at his hair and whipping his face. The breeze rustled their leaves, hiding the sound of his movements (he hoped).

When he thought he was properly concealed Roy stopped and listened. There were the garden streams in the distance, a night bird chirping, a low swelling chorus of strange insects, the wind in the branches -- nothing else. No sound of footsteps, no hushed voices. Roy lowered himself to the ground, taking a slow breath. His side stabbed at him when he moved, bright heat and pain lancing through him, and the breath caught in his throat. He touched his side gingerly and his fingertips came away wet.

“Damn,” Roy breathed, closing his eyes. He had no idea how deep the wound might be, or even, for that matter, if Hirsch had poisoned her blade. It would have ensured she got the job done properly and that made it seem like exactly the sort of thing Hirsch might do.

_ Alphonse, _ he thought, his eyes still closed. He hadn’t even had to think about it really. His attackers might not have been Yao guards, but they had still worn the uniform, and his spine prickled when he thought of bringing this to the emperor. His cheek throbbed and his ribs ached. Burning pain pulsed in his side with each breath. There was Alphonse for that too.

Roy opened his eyes and crept out from under the rhododendrons, gritting his teeth when his nerves screamed at him and a fresh hot burn erupted from the cut in his side. He pictured the little hut beside the stream and pushed himself to his feet. He thought he remembered the way.

\-----

After Roy knocked on the door there was silence for a long minute, then the sound of somebody moving inside and a flickering light in the hut. He leaned heavily against the doorframe in a way he hoped would appear self-sufficient and impressive enough. 

The expression on Alphonse’s face when the door opened told him he had failed. “General Mustang?”

“_ Roy _,” Roy protested, and staggered inside.

“Sit down!” Alphonse exclaimed, jumping to support him, which Roy thought was silly because he obviously knew enough not to collapse across someone’s threshold. Warm arms wrapped around his shoulders and guided him firmly to a low couch, which Roy lay gratefully back against and tried not to bleed on.

He watched through half-closed eyes with gritted teeth, breathing shallowly, as Alphonse took down a large blank piece of paper and a brush from somewhere and began to paint a strange-looking array. The characters and curves seemed to blur together oddly. Maybe that was the blood loss. Roy’s fingers were beginning to feel numb too, inside the gloves; he curled them and tried to pinch his own thigh, to keep himself awake. It didn’t work and his eyes slipped the rest of the way shut.

There was a flash of blue light and a brief urgent pain in his side, and another in his arm. The pain went away quickly, followed by an odd fizzing sensation, almost tickling. Then there was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently, and a voice coming from far away. It sounded like --

“Alphonse?” Roy mumbled, and opened his eyes to a small room lit dimly by a single lamp. He was lying awkwardly against a small couch with Alphonse Elric bending over him, eyes gleaming with concern. 

“The bleeding should all be stopped now,” Alphonse said, and sat back. “I fixed your arm and your left side. Your jaw looks pretty bad too but I don’t think it’s broken, so the rest of that will have to heal on its own. Sorry.”

Roy struggled up, wincing at the ache in his side when he did, and touched his own face carefully, running his fingers along his bruised jawline. Alphonse was still looking at him with concern and something like fear in his face. “Already have a perfectly nice scar there,” Roy muttered, the words only slurring together a little. “She could have gone for the other side and made it symmetrical.”

The joke didn’t land, apparently. Alphonse stared at him with solemn eyes. “If that were a few centimeters deeper, you could have died.”

That reminded Roy of the poison. “It was a kunai, do they poison those?” he asked, trying to lean toward Alphonse but inadvertently lurching forward instead. Alphonse caught him by the arms.

“It doesn’t _ look _poisoned,” Alphonse said, and Roy realized for the first time that his shirt was gone. He wondered where it was and hoped he hadn’t bled on Alphonse’s couch for lack of it. “Do you feel like it was? Who stabbed you with a kunai?”

“No, I feel fine,” Roy said and leaned back heavily against the couch. “I just didn’t know.”

“Who stabbed you?” Alphonse asked again.

It took Roy a few minutes to get the whole story out in a way that made sense. Alphonse sat and listened attentively throughout, not speaking and barely moving, except for the momentary widening of his eyes and the tightening of his hands on his knees.

When Roy finished explaining everything he knew or could guess Alphonse breathed out, hard and sharp, and said, “We have to tell Ling.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Roy said slowly. “With what’s happened…”

“The emperor is considered to be a radical by half the clan officials because of his support for the kinds of things they call foreign agendas,” Alphonse said. His eyes grew resolute, smouldering amber in the lamplight. “I _ am _going to tell him.”

Something about the way Alphonse looked when he spoke with such conviction made Roy dizzy at the idea of arguing back. Maybe that was the blood loss. “Alright,” he said. “But I want to be there too.”

“You will be,” Alphonse said. “I’ll have Ling over tomorrow morning. I don’t think you should leave the house at all. I know he has nothing to do with this, but your people could have been wearing actual Yao guard uniforms. They might not have been but if they were we need to be especially careful.”

“Bring him over now,” Roy said, trying to push himself to his feet. His side throbbed with a searing pain and he sank back onto the couch, trying to look like he had simply changed his mind about standing up. “Let’s settle it now.”

“Don’t do that!” Alphonse moved as though to push Roy back into his seat, but Roy had beaten him to it. Alphonse sighed. “You need to rest. You lost a lot of blood and your body’s natural healing process needs time to work now that I’ve gotten it started. Lift your arm so I can see that.”

Roy did, and ignored the oddly ticklish feeling of Alphonse’s fingers on him as best he could. He winced when Alphonse grazed a raw, smarting place lower down on his side. A soft noise rose in Alphonse’s throat in response, his hands drifting back up to Roy’s ribcage, gently feeling out the skin.

“Okay,” Alphonse said after what seemed like half the night, and his hands drew away, leaving empty air behind them. “I got it all the first time, and there’s definitely no poison. You should be fine. Here, let me help you get up.”

Before Roy could protest Alphonse had wrapped an arm around him and lifted him almost bodily off the couch. Roy did his best to move his feet and bear as much of his own weight as he could while Alphonse steered him through a door into a smaller, darker room and began to let him down into a low bed -- was that _ Alphonse’s _bed?

“Stop,” Roy said. It came out a bit garbled. “Stop,” he repeated, and Alphonse did. “Put me back on the couch. I’m not going to take your bed.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Alphonse said. “You almost bled out twenty minutes ago. Take the bed, I don’t need it.”

“It’s yours, I don’t want it,” Roy insisted. He was already sitting on it, Alphonse’s arm still at his back supporting him, and it took a monumental effort not to just give up and sink back into the sheets, but he couldn’t do something like that. “I’ll take the couch.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” said Alphonse firmly and took away his arm. Roy struggled for a second, then accepted the inevitability and sank back, propping himself up on an elbow. “I sleep on it half the time anyway. Sometimes I go outside and sleep on the ground. Sleep is sleep. And I know Brother will want to give you a hard time about stealing my bed when he finds out.” There was a ghost of a smile in Alphonse’s voice. “How could you?”

It was a fair argument, and Roy doubted he could keep himself up this way any longer. His side and arm were beginning to ache again. He groaned and gave up. The mattress rose to meet him in the dark.

Voices murmured in the next room and Roy woke to a warm weight on his chest. Golden light streamed into the room from the cracked screen door and he opened his eyes to see something on top of him, expanding and contracting minutely. His nose itched. A tail flicked up and brushed his cheek. He had missed the cat last night in between everything else.

Roy turned his head to the side and breathed in the good, unfamiliar smell of the sheets around him. He didn’t remember covering himself last night. He closed his eyes and listened to the voices in the next room -- Alphonse and Emperor Yao, clearly, speaking in Xingese. One would speak and finish and without pause the other would say something back. They continued like that for as long as Roy listened, the low volume doing nothing to hide the intensity of their conversation.

Though Roy understood nothing of the bits and pieces he caught, the thought of waiting patiently in bed under a cat while his fate was decided didn’t appeal to him in the slightest, not least because he felt a sneeze coming on. He sat up, wincing, and discovered a second cat curled by his side. He deposited the one on his chest beside it and got up the rest of the way.

In the other room a short Yao guard stood motionless by the front door. Emperor Yao and Alphonse sat debating what ought to be done over steaming cups of tea. 

When Roy walked in Alphonse looked up, broke off in the middle of an impassioned sentence, and waved him over, his smile only a little tighter than usual. “You can have that,” he said, pointing to a short robe thrown over the couch, and Roy put it on gratefully then went to sit at the low table with Alphonse and the emperor. A cup of tea was waiting for him.

“General Mustang!” Emperor Yao said, sounding perfectly delighted at the sight of him. Roy wondered if anything ever shook the man. “It sounds like you had quite a night.”

“I’ve had worse,” Roy said. The veneer of friendliness and good humor reminded him too much of himself when he wanted something, and put him on guard.

“Well, maybe.” The emperor took a delicate sip of his tea. “I’m embarrassed that anything like this could happen to someone while they were under my protection. To be honest, General, now that you’re safe, what worries me is the involvement of the Yao clan in all of this. Your escape created enough of a disturbance that others may have awoken and seen the people in your room, in their disguises -- assuming that all of your party was not involved with this situation. How many of them did you choose yourself?”

“Hawkeye,” Roy said. “That was all. They put Keyes in charge of the rest of the group, since she wanted to make it an academic affair. I just approved them.”

“Ah.” Emperor Yao’s face was perfectly neutral. “Well. In between the time you set the room on fire and escaped and the time Lan Fan here arrived --” he gestured to the silent guard by the door “-- thank you, Lan Fan, you’re wonderful -- some time did elapse in which the building may or may not have been secure, and we don’t know what could have happened in that time. All this of course assuming that you are telling the truth.” The mask dropped for a brief moment and his eyes pierced Roy’s, clear and demanding, and then the smile and the cheerful look were on again. He waved the thought away with a lazy flip of his wrist. “Al says you are, and of course I trust his judgment.”

“I thought we established that there was no reason for him to lie.” Alphonse sighed. “Just tell him what you think.” 

“Right. Well, General,” Yao said, “I don’t know who was involved with this, other than those three guards of yours you think you saw. Frankly speaking, I won’t sleep comfortably until I have names, faces, and proof. You don’t know any of the Amestrians who came with you and I have no reason to trust them. I don’t know what sort of getup your guards were wearing and while I suspect a guard’s mask wouldn’t have to be a particularly good fake to fool a foreigner, I still don’t know where they got them, and I don’t like that. Also, none of them are in custody, which seems improbable given the number of my guards stationed around your residence last night. If I may be completely honest my immediate goal is to eliminate the threat not only to you -- no offense, General -- but to my people here in the palace, and the people of Xing.” He smiled widely.

“He told me this already,” Alphonse said to Roy under his breath, then turned back to Yao. “That’s your goal taken care of, but what about General Mustang? I can’t just keep him here while you figure this all out.”

“Well, why not?” Emperor Yao asked. “It would be easiest. His guards never followed him around the palace. They don’t know he’s been here before. Hide him in plain sight.”

“You don’t even know if you can trust your guards,” Alphonse said. “If people see me bringing food back here, that’s going to be suspicious. And he won’t be able to go outside at all for -- however long this whole plot of yours is going to take, unless you think you’ll be done with it in a day.”

“Oh, of course not, I’ll need at least two weeks,” Yao said airily. 

“General Mustang is in danger,” Alphonse said. “Someone is trying to kill him. I don’t think he should be here.”

“Well, take him away, then, I don’t care.” Yao sipped at his tea again. “It would keep him out from under foot. That could be helpful. One less factor to consider. You know,” he added to Roy, “lighting the room on fire wasn’t particularly subtle.”

“You want _ me _to take him away?” Alphonse said, before Roy could respond to that. “Where would I take him?”

“Oh, use your head, Al,” Yao complained. “You keep moaning about Lady Chang wanting to see you again. Just go a few weeks early and take him with you, keep him out there until the next half moon -- that should be more than enough time for me -- and bring him back. Nobody would look for him there, no foreigners want to go out there and he barely looks like one as it is. I wouldn’t even go. Sheep and rocks and hundred-year-old washed-out bridges as far as the eye can see.”

For a minute Alphonse was quiet, drinking his tea. “That’s actually not a bad idea,” he said finally, a hint of wonder in his voice.

“Don’t be like that,” Yao said, grinning, and nudged Alphonse with his foot under the table, very obviously. “All my ideas are good.”

Alphonse smiled and looked down, an odd bashfulness about the movement that Roy hadn’t seen in him before. Interesting. Ed hadn’t mentioned anything about that.

The rest of the day passed like a whirlwind. Once Alphonse had decided on something he accomplished it, not unlike his brother with a new idea. Roy stayed in the bedroom in the dark with his aching side, out of the way and out of sight of windows and doors. He felt pathetic, being shunted around like this, but what more could he do? For all he knew every single one of Keyes’ hand-picked little entourage was an assassin in disguise, half the palace had been compromised, and Hawkeye and Ross ambushed on their way into the northern mountains, and he could do nothing about it because Emperor Yao didn’t want him _ under foot _. Logically he knew that if this were Central City and he and Yao were in each other’s places, he would have advised something similar -- he had nothing helpful to offer in a domestic crisis like this, and clearly Yao felt responsible for settling the problem -- but that didn’t prevent him from wanting to race out of the garden and into the palace and demand he be given something, anything to do.

Until nightfall he distracted himself by switching between two trains of thought: Hawkeye would not have allowed herself or Ross to be compromised, and Alphonse and the emperor of Xing were apparently an item. When the first train of thought became too dreary he would switch to the second, and when the second began to make him too annoyed (inexplicably so, but he guessed that was because Yao figured so largely in it) he would go back to the first.

It seemed like he had just closed his eyes to sleep that night when a hand rested on his shoulder and he came awake again. With Alphonse he gathered his things together in silence by the light of a single lamp.

Nobody was outside to see them off, though Roy felt his hair prickle with the sensation of being watched when they walked among the trees. The Yao guards, if they were there, had hidden themselves well. The two of them went out of the palace in the dark by a back gate in the outer wall, walking slowly, and turned south toward the distant hills.


	4. Chapter 4

The first few days on the road went by slowly, partly because of Roy’s injury and partly because Alphonse insisted on keeping to the untraveled back roads, some of them barely more than an animal track through a thick bamboo forest. Even in the most desolate parts of the forest, where all they heard in the twilight were the calls of strange birds and animals and an unfamiliar chorus of insects, Roy was surprised to find traveler’s shrines along the wayside, little altars with just enough space carved out around them to build a campfire and sleep in.

On the morning of the fourth day, when the forest began to thin and the path grew wider and started winding uphill, Alphonse judged it was safe to head back to the main thoroughfare since they were far enough from Xianzai to prevent word from getting back.

“You would have been fine by yourself earlier,” Alphonse said, “especially in these clothes, but I tend to be distinctive.”

Together with Emperor Yao they had determined that Roy’s Amestrian clothes would draw too much attention, so they had put him in some of Alphonse’s everyday wear instead. The clothing was well-made and comfortable, although maybe that was just because it had been made to fit Alphonse and hung loosely on him.

Nobody seemed to care about the fit of his clothing when they did turn back onto the main road and began to pass through settlements and villages on their way up into the southern foothills. If anyone noticed them at all it was usually because of Alphonse, and even then they seemed pleasantly surprised rather than disconcerted.

“Most people know about me,” Alphonse said one night when Roy asked him about it. They were crouched under the eaves of a temple in the village while the rain drummed down. “Nobody thinks I’m the Western Sage reborn anymore, but when someone who looks like me shows up in Xing knowing what I know, people get curious, I guess. It’s why Ling thought we should go together. You look so normal that nobody will even notice you, or if they do they’ll think you’re my interpreter.”

The two of them reaped the benefits of that curiosity in offerings of fruit and vegetables and little bags of rice. Most people seemed to assume that Alphonse was the sage and Roy his interpreter, and in every town they would come up to Roy speaking to him eagerly in far too many words too quickly. Every time he turned to Alphonse, who smiled graciously and interceded.

In return for the gifts, Alphonse did what he could: a roof repaired here, a grandmother’s aching joints eased there. Roy was surprised to learn that the practice of alkahestry was limited in Xing, even more so than the practice of alchemy in Amestris.

“It’s because of the literacy rates,” Alphonse explained when Roy asked about it one night. “Most people in Xing who read only know some kind of local shorthand, not the script that alkahestry books are written in. It’s why everyone is always saving to pay tuition for their children to pass the exams and become officials, because that’s the only way out for most of them.” They were crouched next to each other in the overhang of a cramped cave in the side of a hill that housed a shrine while rain poured down in the dark beyond. Every couple of minutes their bravely flickering fire would gutter and try to go out, and Roy would snap it back to life. That was all he had to contribute so he figured he might as well do a good job of it.

“Doesn’t anyone pass it down through teaching? Or some kind of folk tradition?” If alkahestry were so different in theory from alchemy, Roy was surprised that its practice suffered from such limitations. 

“Some people do. Actually, that’s why the Chang clan is so good at it, even though they’re one of the poorest noble clans -- but from everything I know that’s not typical, and they are a noble family anyway. It’s mostly the rich noble families and philosophers who study it, and they don’t want to share it with anyone else.” Alphonse glanced at Roy. “If you know alkahestry here or can even read the dragon’s pulse, you’re highly respected, so it isn’t exactly like alchemy in Amestris, but Xing has its own problems. Ling is doing his best to change things, but...”

This time Roy didn’t miss the smile in Alphonse’s voice when he mentioned the emperor, or the softening of his gaze when he trailed off into silence. “And what about _ that _?” he said after a minute, knocking Alphonse’s arm gently with his elbow. “How long have you and the emperor been an item?”

“Oh!” Alphonse looked away, perceptible color rising into his cheeks. A smile crept across his face. “We aren’t -- we don’t -- Well, it’s not like that anymore. That was only for a little bit.”

Roy snorted, doubtful but amused. “What did Ed think about that?”

“Oh, Brother doesn’t know. We were together for a while after Mei left, but it wasn’t anything serious. I mean I was the only person he could trust for a while who wasn’t one of his subjects, and you’ve seen Ling --” he darted a look that was at once both knowing and inquisitive at Roy “-- and you know. How he is, I mean. But it wasn’t going to last. He’s wonderful, but I don’t want to be a prince.”

“Ah.” Roy didn’t know how to feel about that. Strange that part of him wanted to be happy. The finer details of Edward Elric’s little brother’s love life had nothing to do with him. He wondered why he had asked in the first place, and racked his brain for something to change the subject. “...After Mei left?”

“You know Mei,” Alphonse said, looking at Roy as if he indeed ought to know who that was. “Mei Chang? She taught me alkahestry.”

“Mei Chang?” Roy echoed. By this point he must be coming across as a doddering old idiot. He had better resign himself to it.

“Ling’s half-sister? She was in Central at the Promised Day.” Alphonse’s brow furrowed; uncertainty looked surprisingly charming on him. “She knows alkahestry, she has a little panda…”

“Oh, the alkahestry girl,” Roy said, vaguely remembering. “I don’t think we were ever introduced. Not for lack of trying.”

“She’s fast,” Alphonse agreed solemnly. “Anyway, she invited me to live with her clan after she had been teaching me alkahestry in Xianzai for a while. I think court life was getting to her too. The Chang clan is kind of in the backwoods of Xing, it’s all farms and countryside and there aren’t a lot of people, like Resembool. We both felt like we had to stay in court for a long time because of how much trouble Ling was having, and we wanted to support him, but we were both a lot happier out here.”

“That makes sense,” Roy said. At least it made sense for Alphonse. He wasn’t sure he’d be as comfortable living out in the middle of the hills and mountains with nobody but sheep and goats and one or two other people for comfort. He had had that for a while with Master Hawkeye when he was young and was perfectly happy not to live that way again. “So we’re going to see her?”

“No,” Alphonse said, “she left.”

He _ had _said that before, but Roy had assumed he meant leaving court. “She went to a different city?”

“No, she’s in Ishval now,” Alphonse said. “With -- do you remember Scar?”

“Of course I remember Scar,” Roy said indignantly.

“Well, sorry. You didn’t remember Mei.”

“Mei didn’t try to kill me. I remember people who try to kill me. It’s important.”

“Okay. That’s fair.” Alphonse laughed softly, then looked down into the fire, his eyes growing more serious. “Anyway, about a year ago, Mei’s mom, the Lady Chang, was… sick. In her mind. And she died.” He was quiet for a minute before he went on. “Mei and I were visiting Ling in Xianzai when it happened, and Mei got really upset when she found out. She didn’t want to stay in Xianzai but she didn’t feel like she could stay at home with her clan either, and I guess she had been writing to some of her friends in Ishval for a while, and she was thinking of them especially after the sickness last year, so one day she just left. She’s still out there. I don’t think she planned to stay for as long as she did but she really likes it, and people keep asking her to teach them alkahestry and now she says her students don’t want her to leave.” His eyes were smiling again.

That was touching, but it confused Roy even more. “Then why are we going to the Chang clan?”

“Mei’s aunt really likes me,” Alphonse said. “Lady Chang An. She pretty much runs the clan now that Mei is gone. She’s the one who taught Mei alkahestry, and she helped teach me too when I was there and tried to get us to marry each other about five different times. I was going to visit her next month anyway so Ling and I thought, why not just show up early?”

“Do you think she’ll feel alright with my being there?” Roy asked. Just because she liked Alphonse didn’t mean this lady was necessarily going to throw her doors open to all and sundry. Objectively speaking Roy was certain that Alphonse Elric charmed significantly more aunts than he himself ever would.

“I like you, so she has to,” Alphonse said with a straight face. He held eye contact for a second, dead serious, then his mouth cracked into a grin again. “An loves meeting new people. The Chang clan is so isolated that they almost never get travelers. She’ll be excited to see you.”

“I hope so,” Roy muttered, stifling a yawn. The fire was dying again. He gave it a good strong blast of flame, narrowing his eyes at it as it smoked in protest. The rain outside was still going strong, spattering the stones around them and drawing the thick clean smell of the wet earth into the air. 

Sleeping in this little crevice was probably going to give him about six wonderful cricks in his back. He couldn’t wait.

Roy woke the next morning with Alphonse’s very warm face pressed snugly in between his shoulder blades, which was interesting. He wriggled out of that situation as quickly as he could and began the process of trying to un-crick his back, hoping that Ed wouldn’t somehow catch wind of this and come charging over the desert to demand that General Mustang unhand his brother.

Although it was summer the morning air carried heavy mists and an unexpected chill, especially this high in the mountains. The ground outside the crevice squished under Roy’s sandals, wet from last night’s rain. He dug around in their bags for one of the light jackets Alphonse had brought and pulled it on. Lying next to Alphonse had been warmer but he wasn’t about to go crawling back up in there like some kind of reverse gender preference Fuhrer President Grumman. 

When Alphonse got up he said nothing about it. Roy expected it most likely came of having been a senseless suit of armor for however many years. Or having an absent father figure. Or something else totally unrelated to Roy. 

They hadn’t passed through any towns yesterday so breakfast was a humble affair, two small servings of rice that they ate with their fingers. Then they turned back onto the road and the sun came out and set the mist in the valleys and the dew on the shrubs and bamboo leaves to sparkling, and Roy forgot his hunger for the time being. 

Around midday they crossed a swinging rope bridge across a deep gorge that made Roy dizzy to look down into. Alphonse perked up visibly once they were over it, his strides lengthening so Roy had to hurry to catch up. It wasn’t fair with his long legs. 

“Not a fan of heights?” Roy asked. “Me neither.” 

“It’s not that,” Alphonse said. “That was the eastern border of Chang territory. We should get to the pastures soon, and we can cut through those to reach the Chang village.”

The pastures were small fields, painstakingly cleared from the forest, where grass grew green and thick, dotted with white and pink flowers. Because of the elevation the ground below them sloped, and when Roy thought to look behind them and down the mountain, he stopped for a moment in surprise at the ground they had covered. The southern foothills stretched away far beneath them, wisps of white cloud floating in the gorges and valleys between them. He stared out across the flat land past that to the blurry blue line of the horizon and didn’t see even an indication of Xianzai.

“Look!” Alphonse said, touching his arm, and he turned, instantly alert. The soldier inside him relaxed when he saw what Alphonse had seen: a flock of sheep making their way slowly along the forest line, grazing as they went.

“Thoughts of home?” Roy teased, remembering that awful time Ed had strongarmed him into a Resembool sheep-shearing contest. Sheep made him think of failure, and being bitten on the thumb. Still, the way Alphonse smiled at the sight made him want to forgive them.

“Sort of.” Alphonse’s forehead wrinkled. “So much here is so different, but every year I know there’ll be the lambing season, the shearing, the trading, at the same time it’s happening in Resembool. It was nice living up here and being able to tell Ed and Winry about our spring shearing festival, and hearing about theirs, even when nothing else seemed the same at first.”

“Did you stay because of the similarities, or the differences?”

“The differences, I think,” Alphonse said slowly. “If it were all the same, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. In a way I think it’s like the first thing you have to learn in alchemy or alkahestry… all is one. Different is same.” He blinked and looked away from the sheep, down at Roy, his gaze clear and curious. “Why did you come here, anyway? Xing, I mean. Shouldn’t you be in Amestris if you’re supposed to be running for president in a year?”

“I wonder that now, with all that’s happened,” Roy said, not sure himself if he was serious. “But -- a large part of my platform is built on a policy of international relations, and I can’t back that up without showing I’m sincere. Grumman’s presidency has been focused on cleaning up our internal affairs, but I think we’re ready for a change. Amestris can become a player on the world stage again, but not the way she was. I want to prove even before I’m in power that acting as agents of peace and sharing our wealth and knowledge will benefit Amestris and bring us strength, and that we’ll be welcomed by the nations we reach out to.”

“Somebody clearly doesn’t agree,” Alphonse murmured. “Maybe a lot of people.”

Roy’s fingers twitched in unconscious response, curling into a fist. “I don’t know who was behind that. I knew some of the higher-ups in the military haven’t been pleased with me; hell, even Grumman has serious doubts, which is part of the reason why he’s running against me. The second thing I’m going to instate after a robust international policy is a term limit, by the way. I don’t think _ he _would send a group of assassins after me, but then I didn’t think anyone would send a group of assassins after me, much less a group of goons disguised as agents of the country we’re trying to build a long-standing trade relationship with. Of course Keyes is in on it and I’m a fool for trusting her at all, but there’s no way Keyes alone has the power to do all that.”

“I’m sorry,” Alphonse said, concern creeping into his eyes again. “That’s hard. Do you think it will hurt your campaign?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Roy realized too late how the frustration had crept into his face and the tone of his voice and shook it off, trying to seem pleasant. “We’ve been through worse and it’ll take more than a couple of murderers with a vendetta to stop me. I won’t allow it to hurt the campaign. Amestris can’t afford it at this stage. I don’t care how many generals tell me this will diminish our power and harm technological innovation. We’ve been at constant war with our neighbors since the country’s foundation and it needs to stop.”

“You really believe in this, don’t you?” Alphonse laughed, a short, delighted sound. “I might have to move back to Amestris next year so I can vote Mustang.”

“Don’t do that just on my account,” Roy said, smiling. He knew Alphonse wasn’t serious. “Anyway, Grumman’s immigration policies are terrible right now. I don’t know what your citizenship status is, but you might not be able to get back in.” 

“I know some people,” said Alphonse. “I could make it happen. Get me a nice big crate and watch.” 

“I’m not going to try to stop you,” Roy said, “but don’t try to implicate me in any of it. The Central papers are already running smear pieces about how I’ll be smuggling in Cretans and Xingese left and right to inflate my numbers. I don’t need any Elrics causing trouble for me on top of that.” 

“It’s a deal!” Alphonse said brightly. 

The sheep led them slowly up the pasture, over a bridge that spanned a trickling brook and down a winding footpath that deposited them eventually back on what must have been the main road, a dirt path just wide enough for a donkey cart. Even a small car would not have fit, although of course a car would have been in trouble back at the rope bridge.

From there it was easy going down the ridge into a dip in the green mountainside, where a red wooden gate rose up across the road. It seemed to be a formality and not any real kind of security measure; the short fence of sticks beside it, such as it was, could only generously be called a fence and was full of gaps that the sheep squeezed through with contented _ baa _s. The faded paint on the gate cracked and peeled. Strings and ribbons dangled from the gateposts, some of them with little charms or pieces of cloth attached to them, most of them trailing emptily. Beyond the fences stood houses, which were very small, and Roy thought he could hear faint voices, but he wasn’t quite sure.

“We’re here!” Alphonse announced, eyes shining. He stepped forward and pushed the gate open -- ah, so they didn’t even lock it. Roy wondered what the point of it was. “Better let me do the talking. Don’t worry, they’ll love you.”


	5. Chapter 5

By sunset Lady Chang An had fully familiarized herself with Roy’s history, family background, likes, dislikes, and food preferences, and set him up in a house. The woman’s slight stature appeared mismatched to the passion she poured into every movement, every word, her eyes always sparkling with excitement at some joke or question she had just thought of. She seemed younger than him, and he was surprised to find her children were Alphonse’s age and older. 

Their house was nothing like the residential hall in the Xianzai palace and reminded him much more of Alphonse’s little two-room hut in the garden than anything else. Nothing in the Chang family complex was large or elaborate. If he hadn’t been told it was the noble family’s neighborhood he would never have picked the cluster of modest houses out from the mountain village that surrounded it. No walls stood around the Chang houses and no palace rose up above the other buildings, not even a small one.

Roy’s mind lingered on that as he followed Alphonse through the door of the small house, both of them peering past Lady An to see it. She swept on ahead of them like a great gust of wind, energy seeming to spark at her slender fingertips.

“The beds are there,” she said to Roy in Amestrian, pointing, when he came to stand beside her, and then turned to Alphonse and bubbled over into a long digression in songlike Xingese.

Roy went into the small room and set down his pack beside one of the two low beds. The bed itself was an interesting contraption, woven out of rope. His back was not looking forward to its encounter with that, though it had to be better than the floor of the cave last night.

“Ayi,” Alphonse said from the doorway, beckoning to Lady An, and asked her some question in Xingese. She paused, then responded in another effervescent burst, the smile lines etching themselves deeper into her face.

Roy went over to join them at the door, trying to pick out some word he recognized from An’s quick speech, but it turned out he didn’t have to. When she had finished explaining whatever it was Alphonse had asked about, she turned to Roy and said in Amestrian, “I will cook for everyone this evening, in our house, and Al will come. You are welcome, if it would not be an inconvenience.”

“Of course I’ll come,” Roy said immediately, surprised again at her Amestrian and then surprised at himself for being surprised. “Thank you for hosting me, Lady Chang. It’s an honor.”

That wonderful smile burst out on her face again. “Any friend of Al’s is my family's as well! It’s good to have you here. Tell me again why you came?”

“Ayi, I think he’s tired,” Alphonse said in Amestrian to An, tugging gently at her sleeve. “You can ask him that at dinner tonight -- I mean --” and he went into a long explanation in Xingese that Roy couldn’t follow. 

“Of course, of course,” An said good-naturedly, and she went down the hall with him, chatting merrily in Xingese all the way to the door. 

After a few minutes Alphonse came back in and looked into the room. Roy, not strong enough to fight the assessment of his condition, had retired to the bed and perched on the edge of it. He was sure he must look pitiable from Alphonse’s vantage point, some old washed-up nobody in too-big borrowed clothes stuck in the middle of a country where he didn’t speak the language, and desperate for a nap. For some reason, though, Alphonse smiled when he looked at him.

“Sorry, she gets excited,” Alphonse said.

“I thought she was lovely.” Roy smothered a yawn. “I’m excited to see what she has for dinner. Does everybody here speak Amestrian?”

“No, just some of the Chang family,” Alphonse said. “Nobody else has a reason to. An’s Amestrian is the best out of everyone because she felt like she had to teach Mei, when she was a girl, and then she wanted to practice with me when I was up here. But she’s really intelligent, she can read some Ancient Xerxian too.”

Nothing like Ancient Xerxian to make a man feel inadequate. Roy sighed, regretting that he hadn’t picked Percy’s brain for more Xingese when he had the chance. The thought of Percy and the others pricked at his heart and he looked down at the floor.

“Let me get you some sheets,” Alphonse said, misinterpreting the gesture. “I was going to meditate in the forest for a few hours and catch up with An, so you should have plenty of time to catch up on sleep before everyone starts getting hungry.”

Even with sheets the bed turned out to be, as Roy expected, a singular experience. He tossed and turned until he was certain he would bruise himself and then gave up. Somehow, despite the hardness of the bed at his back and the early afternoon light filtering through the screens into the room, he forced himself into an uneasy sleep.

Dinner was a raucous, joyous affair. From what Roy had seen of the village earlier, Lady An appeared to have invited the entire village, or close to that at least. Everyone sat elbow to elbow on the floor around a long, low table in one of the bigger buildings. Roy had been placed strategically between Alphonse and one of Lady An’s older daughters, who would lean in and explain things into his ear at intervals while the other guests laughed and called to one another across the crowd as they ate.

The food was presented in a less ornamental way than the delicacies he’d been served in the palace, and it tasted different too, mostly because of its spiciness. An and her family had prepared a variety of potato dishes, plates of pepper, tofu (which Roy now recognized, having encountered it on his plate in Xianzai several times before), fried lotus, steamed shrimp, hot pot, bread, bean sauce, and bowls heaped full with noodles. Roy tried his best to avail himself of everything before him but he had filled himself near to bursting by the time he finished his first plate. 

After that he watched through drooping eyelids, trying to swallow his yawns, as the guests at the table chatted back and forth. The sun set and the room grew darker and families with younger children began to depart as some of the Chang family members lit the lamps. Roy looked around, trying to identify the people Alphonse and Lady An’s daughter had pointed out to him as cousins, Chang house staff, town officials, farmers, shepherds… The conversation floated above his head, beautiful and unintelligible. Maybe Alphonse could teach him Xingese at the same time as alkahestry.

Next morning Alphonse woke him up early with a hand on his shoulder and a firm shake. Roy groaned and turned his head into the flat pillow that had been provided for him.

“Come on, General Mustang,” Alphonse said close to his ear. “The quick-footed get up first. Did you drink too much last night?” 

They hadn’t brought out the rice wine until after the main courses, and Roy had abstained. “Excuse me?” he said into the pillow with as much dignity as he could muster. 

“I guess I can always practice alkahestry by myself,” Alphonse said. “I might get lonely, but I understand.” 

Roy groaned again and pushed himself up out of bed. He never slept well to begin with, and being in a new place made it worse; some unfamiliar sound had woken him up each time he began to drift off last night. 

“That’s better,” Alphonse said approvingly -- he almost sounded smug. Roy looked up at him quickly, just in time to catch that mischievous smile slipping from his face to be replaced with wide-eyed sincerity. Oh, he was good. 

The white mist lay heavy in the air and the dew-laden grass brushing against Roy’s borrowed trousers left the cloth and his ankles soaking. He followed Alphonse dutifully out the village gate and into the pasture they had come through yesterday, then into the forest where he could barely make out the path before them. By the time Alphonse stopped Roy was thinking only of the hot cup of tea or coffee he could have been nursing by now in Xianzai or Central.

They stood together in a clearing only several meters wide. A slender stream wound through the grass and ran off into the forest. When Roy raised his eyes from the place where the stream disappeared among tree trunks and stalks of bamboo he saw the distant hills through the green branches and leaves, and a vast expanse of dawn-gray sky blushing pink at the edges. He did not breathe for a long instant.

“Breathe,” Alphonse said.

Roy realized that he was being watched, Alphonse’s golden eyes a deep hazel in the low light. He did breathe, looking guiltily to the side.

“Now we’re going to meditate,” Alphonse told him, and sat down in the wet grass cross-legged. 

That looked uncomfortable, but Roy joined him. It was uncomfortable. The water soaked into the cloth and touched his legs. _ I thought this was supposed to be alkahestry, _he wanted to say, but he knew he had been difficult enough already.

Alphonse was still watching him, eyes dark and solemn like he could read his thoughts, which was more uncomfortable than the cold dew currently soaking Roy’s skin, if that were possible. “We’ll sit here for a while. You should breathe like this --” he demonstrated, a slow inhale and exhale “-- in and out. Focus on your breath. If you get distracted, it’s okay, just bring your focus back to breathing like that.” He closed his eyes.

Roy stared for several minutes, marveling at how Alphonse sank into silence, one breath flowing effortlessly after the other. How could someone look so graceful sitting there stone still in the mud and the wet grass? How did anyone related to Edward Elric even reach that point? Alphonse’s chest rose and fell. A breeze stirred the golden hair that fell across his face. His eyelids shivered, then went still.

Roy remembered that he was supposed to be breathing. He shut his eyes and tried.

It didn’t go easily at first; he kept suspecting Alphonse of watching him and cracking open one eye to check. When he had put that suspicion to rest he took a long deep breath and began again, resolute, and made it several breaths until he started to hear the stream beside them, really hear it. He hadn’t noticed it before. Then he realized he was thinking about the stream and not about his breathing and dragged his mind back to the breath in and the breath out.

A twig cracked behind Roy and he jumped, his eyes flying open, but nothing moved behind him. He returned to the breathing. Wings fluttered above him and a bird called harshly. He caught himself in time, remembering not to open his eyes, and wondered what it was -- it sounded nothing like anything he had heard in the gardens in Xianzai. He caught himself again and returned to the breathing.

Usually when he sat in silence too long like this, his eyes closed, Roy would begin to see things behind his eyes and his lungs would tighten and he would taste the phantom burn of smoke in the back of his throat. He caught himself thinking about what he usually saw and returned to the breathing.

“I think that’s enough for now,” he heard Alphonse say somewhere distantly. “Good job.”

Roy opened his eyes and yawned, remembering how tired he was. He had forgotten to think about the caffeine he was missing. His legs were wet, which he had also forgotten to think about, and while his eyes were closed, the sun had risen. New light streamed through the gaps in the graceful trees and set the grass and stream alight, reflecting brilliantly off Alphonse’s hair and eyes when he stood and walked over to offer Roy a hand.

“I’m not that old,” Roy protested, but took the hand and stood up, his trousers sticking damply to his legs. He reached behind him and pulled the cloth away and then it dangled and was more uncomfortable than before.

“What did you think?” asked Alphonse.

“It was nice.” Roy wasn’t sure what else to say. He didn’t exactly understand the point. Of course he hadn’t studied alchemy in a long time either, so maybe the practices had changed, or maybe alkahestry really was that different.

Alphonse looked at him carefully, and again Roy had the strange uncomfortable feeling that his thoughts were under examination. “When you studied alchemy, did your teacher explain the all and the one?”

“We started with that,” Roy said. Didn’t everybody? “Materials are made up of different components, different chemical compositions or arrangements of molecules, and then those components themselves are made up of smaller pieces that we don’t yet know how to see. Or on a larger level, this forest… it’s one forest, made up of the grass and the animals that eat the grass and whatever eats those animals. Is that what you mean?”

“On a scientific level, yes,” Alphonse said. “That’s good.”

Something about the way he said it made Roy think his answer had missed the mark somehow. “What else?” he asked.

“Where do you fit into the forest?”

“I eat the animals that eat the grass?” Roy suggested, not meaning it in a flippant way. He didn’t know quite what Alphonse was getting at.

Alphonse laughed in delight, breaking the early morning quiet. “Okay,” he said. “Yes. That’s true. That’s not bad. What does that mean to you?”

“Dinner,” Roy said. Alphonse’s laugh made him want to say it, but after he heard it come out of his own mouth he wanted to kick himself. 

“Be _ serious _,” Alphonse complained, his smile widening.

“I’m part of the world,” Roy said, hazarding a guess. “I need food to give myself energy, and stay alive, but ultimately I’m just one part of the forest, like a piece of grass. If I decide to live out my life here I die and some other animal eats me, a fox or a bear or something. Is that right?”

“There’s no right or wrong answer,” Alphonse said serenely, folding his arms, “but that’s a good direction. Although the bears here only eat bamboo. What else?” 

“Non-scientifically speaking, we’re all part of other systems,” Roy suggested. “Countries. Armies. The hell that is the Amestrian political bureaucracy. But in those systems, no matter how powerful one man may be, he’s still only one man.” He stopped, beginning to understand. There was silence. Alphonse’s eyes shone. “So it’s not just scientific, the same way your brother talks about equivalent exchange. I’m only one small part of a whole, but even one insignificant man can change something by reaching out to the others around him, if all is one. Hopefully.”

“That’s good,” Alphonse said again quietly.

Roy waited for some other commentary but got none. “So,” he said at last when it seemed Alphonse wasn’t going to add anything. He took a deep breath and let it out and returned his mind to the actual task at hand, because Alphonse probably didn’t care about an old man’s political babblings. “That has something to do with alchemy. Or alkahestry. All is one, one is all. I think I see what you mean. How do you draw a basic alkahestric array?”

“Oh, we’re not there yet,” Alphonse said airily. “We need a few more days, I think.”

“You’re tough,” Roy said, raising his eyebrows.

“You think so?” Alphonse looked at him in mock surprise. “I didn’t think it was too bad. I could take a leaf out of my old alchemy teacher’s book and throw some knives at you if you want.”

“_ Knives? _”

“It might help, actually,” Alphonse mused. “I feel like it added a sense of urgency for me.”

“I think I can find my own sense of urgency somewhere else,” Roy said. “But thank you.”

For the rest of the day Alphonse said nothing more about alkahestry, and Roy decided the knives were a legitimate enough threat that he ought not to ask. He spent the rest of the day tagging along behind as Alphonse went door to door in the town, greeting old friends and showing Roy to them. Every few houses some small old lady would exclaim in delight and pull Alphonse in through the door behind her, and would stuff Roy full of tea and fruit or fried dough cakes while she and Alphonse talked up a storm. He appeared to be popular with people’s mothers. Dinner that night was quieter, only a few members of An’s family present at the big table with Roy and Alphonse, and exhaustion plunged Roy into a deep enough sleep that he didn’t float back to the surface of consciousness for several hours.

The next few days went much like the first, from the early morning meditation to the visiting to the small informal dinners, and Roy began to enjoy it. He was starting to recognize the most common ways people greeted each other, and even a few turns of phrase beyond the basic “please”, “thank you”, and “bathroom” Percy had taught him before. Despite being the seat of a royal family the Chang village held nothing of the shine and grandeur of Xianzai, and daily life there carried on in a sunlit haze of happy monotony. After Xianzai, Roy appreciated the change.

One day, well into their first week there, they were eating breakfast together when Alphonse stopped with a spoonful of rice porridge hovering over the bowl and sat transfixed. Roy watched, fascinated, for the several seconds it took Alphonse to blink, twitch, remember himself, and finish the bite.

“We still need to go out with the sheep!” said Alphonse when he had swallowed, speaking with far more enthusiasm than Roy would ever have expected anyone to give to the prospect of being around sheep. “I’ll ask An if we can give one of her shepherds a day off.”

An was agreeable to the idea, and that day the two of them were substitute shepherds. Their assigned flock of sheep included a donkey, a goose, and a small sand-colored dog with a face like a fox; Roy saw the goose eye him with suspicion when he and Alphonse stepped into the sheep pen, and he immediately decided to make an alliance with the dog. You could trust dogs.

After a pat on the head and a scratch behind the ears the dog became amenable to the idea and stayed close beside Roy as the sheep led them out to pasture, weaving between his legs and darting back among the flock at intervals. When the sheep had decided on a place to graze in a sunny patch of meadow, Roy seated himself on a flat rock next to Alphonse and the dog hopped up to sit next to him, tail wagging. The goose wandered away from the sheep, gave them a hard look, and sidled off.

They sat together without speaking, the morning sun pouring warmth down on Roy’s head and back. Without being told he found himself focusing on his breath, in slowly and out again. Above the rustling of the grass the stream on the other side of the pasture was barely audible, and there were the birds and insects in the forest, the heat of the sun and the hardness of the rock beneath him and the sound of grazing sheep around them, and he felt it all and focused on his breath. In and out. The hot sun and the breeze on his neck and the dog’s soft fur under his hand and the awareness of Alphonse beside him. Something lay there in his mind or somewhere deeper, just out of reach.

“What you said the other day,” Alphonse said, and although he spoke quietly the abruptness of speech broke Roy from his reverie. “Is that why you’re running for president?”

It took a minute for Roy to collect his thoughts and remember. What had he said? “When we talked about the one and the all?”

“Yes,” Alphonse said. “When you started talking about countries, and politics, and being one piece of that and wanting to change it. Is that why?”

“Basically, yes,” Roy said, feeling suddenly awkward. He doubted Alphonse really wanted to hear the stumbling philosophy behind why he did what he did. Philosophy had never been his strength. “It was just what you were saying. I’m only one man, one part of a system, like any other person. On my own, my actions amount to nothing, but joined together with the people of my country, we can change and grow.”

“But why do you want to be president?” The expression on Alphonse’s face was unreadable. “You’ve helped so many people from where you are, and even before that. Look at Ishval now.”

“That wasn’t me,” Roy said, his heart twisting. “It certainly wasn’t me alone, and I only played a small part in the end. There are so many other things broken in Amestris, and if I can see that brokenness in the whole system, as one part of that whole it would be selfish not to do everything I can to fix it. If I change the lives of the people beneath me now, and they in turn reach out to help the ones they love, how many more parts of the whole will be changed if I become the person at the head of all of Amestris?”

Alphonse was quiet for a very long time, his eyes fixed on Roy’s, his breathing even and his body completely still. The breeze played in his hair and beard. A sheep bleated. Finally Alphonse moved, a strange smile flickering over his face as his shoulders slumped and he looked at his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

“What?” Roy stared at him. 

“I think I was too young before the Promised Day, and too absorbed in myself.” The words came out in a rush, directed at Alphonse’s hands. “All I’ve heard about you since I’ve been here is what Ed says in his letters, and he knows you so much better than I do so he’s not very serious about you, and I should have talked to Ross more before you came but I didn’t and -- I feel like I should apologize. I haven’t taken you very seriously. I really admire everything you’ve said, and I hope you can accomplish it, and… you’ve been very kind, to be so patient with me when I’ve been so absorbed with myself.” He sounded absolutely dismal.

“_ Patient _ with you?” Roy echoed, shocked. He didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t ask you to take me seriously. I didn’t ask you for anything, but you’ve been…” He struggled to find a word for it. “You’ve been amazing. We barely even know each other, like you said, but you’ve treated me so well even after all of this, and you’ve been willing to teach me, and bring me to this place, and listen to me complain -- _ I _ should be apologizing to _ you _ for being so much trouble.”

“You’re not trouble!” Alphonse exclaimed, his head shooting up. “I appreciate you wanting me to teach you, after I just stood around and laughed at you in Xianzai.”

That wasn’t how Roy remembered Xianzai at all. “I was laughing with you,” he protested. “Do you know how few people laugh at me now, anyway? It’s always ‘Roy Mustang is trying to destroy this country’ or ‘Roy Mustang is our only hope, it’s all in his hands’. You should see the newspapers. It makes me wish fewer people took me seriously.”

Alphonse sighed, but his shoulders relaxed. “Is that actually true?”

“It is,” Roy said. He was still incredulous that Alphonse would think he had to apologize for anything. “I can’t say I expected much of what has happened here so far, but you’ve been the least disappointing part of it.” Oh, god, that had come out without being meant to. It sounded like some awful backhanded compliment.

Alphonse blinked twice, staring at him, then laughed suddenly, a short lovely burst of sound. “Not a great vacation, then.”

“Sorry.” Roy looked away. The sunlight heated his back and the exposed part of his neck, the warmth creeping up into his face. He wished for another breeze. “I didn’t mean it that way. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me so far, and if things had to happen like this, at least I haven’t had to go through it alone. You have nothing to apologize for.”

They watched the sheep in silence. “You know,” Alphonse said at last, “I was joking before about coming back to vote for you, but I have been thinking about it -- coming back to Amestris. And if I did, I would.”

The sun began its journey down. When the shadows grew long and blue and the flock turned homeward, Roy and Alphonse went with them.

Before they left to meditate in the clearing the next morning, Alphonse borrowed a basket from Lady An and filled it with food. “It’s going to be a long day!” he announced to Roy, smiling. Roy was glad their conversation yesterday hadn’t dampened his spirits for long.

Meditation proceeded as usual. Roy was beginning to wonder if he was expected to have some kind of breakthrough doing this, and the thought kept circling back to nudge at his focus. He tried to acknowledge it and let it go but by the time the sun had risen the worry had settled in the back of his mind, waiting.

“You had some good ideas when we talked about the all and the one,” Alphonse began. Sitting cross-legged across from Roy in the quickly drying grass, he reached into the basket beside him and handed Roy a pork bun, which Roy bit into eagerly. “Alchemy is governed by the law of equivalent exchange, and that applies to alkahestry too, but the fundamental concept behind alkahestry is the energy of the earth, which flows through everything in some shape or form. What you were saying about the forest, with the animals eating the grass and dead things going back into the system, is the best way to start conceptualizing it from an Amestrian point of view, I think. It’s less grounded in science than that, but it will help you get there.”

From there Alphonse dived into several hours of digression on the pillars of Xingese philosophy and religion, and the influence they had on the teaching and practice of alkahestry. Roy listened attentively, catching Xingese phrases as Alphonse went along. Apparently there was some idea of heaven, and the home of the gods -- he remembered the stark white Gate of Truth with an unpleasant shiver -- and then there was another principle of studying your individual past and the stories of your family’s ancestors, and holding them in respect. Then, Alphonse explained, came the concept of retribution and moral reciprocity, the order of the world and each individual’s fate, which seemed almost like equivalent exchange. Together with those ideas, the idea of this nebulous energy existed, and governed the study of alkahestry.

“The Xingese word for that energy is qi,” Alphonse said. “Some people who don’t practice alkahestry are still able to sense qi, like most of the Yao guards. It might be easier if you think about it being like the universe breathing. It’s within everything, always moving, but not chaotic; alkahestry is all about sensing the flow of qi, understanding the pattern, and manipulating it.”

“Shouldn’t this be easier for me if I already know alchemy?” Roy’s head was spinning. “Half my family was Xingese, is there any evidence that any of this is hereditary?”

“No,” Alphonse said. “It’s just something you have to learn. Though I’m surprised all this is new to you, if your family was Xingese.”

“I never knew my biological parents,” Roy said. “My father and mother had both been in Amestris for a while before I was born, according to my aunt, so I don’t know how much either of them could have taught me anyway.”

“That’s kind of like Hohenheim,” Alphonse said. “It’s how I felt when I first got here -- the scholarly class in Xing knows a lot more about Xerxes’ history and reputation so everyone recognized my ethnicity and started asking me for my thoughts on all kinds of advanced alkahestry practices, and I just kept wishing I had gotten more of a chance to pick Hohenheim’s brain before he passed. It’s definitely not hereditary.”

“Good.” Roy sighed. “Still, I feel like I should have more of a connection to this place. Or should know more about it, or speak more Xingese, or have some idea of where my family came from… my mother was only part Xingese and my father was an orphan, and my aunt didn’t know their original family names.” He reflected after saying it that this probably paled in comparison to half of someone’s family and culture having been entirely wiped out several centuries ago.

“It sounds hard,” Alphonse said, looking at him sympathetically. “I can try to work more Xingese into these lessons, if that would help. And maybe Ling will have some suggestions about finding out where you came from when you go back.”

“Thank you,” Roy said. “I’d appreciate that.” He doubted any attempts to track down his ancestors would have much success, but it was kind of Alphonse to offer.

“No problem!” Alphonse said. “Sorry I went on for so long about qi. I promise it’s important.”

“That’s alright.” At least now Roy knew what he was missing, and what the realization that he kept waiting for during meditation was most likely supposed to be. “I don’t know how I should record any of this in my notes.”

“Do you really…” Alphonse said, then stopped, looking to the side with a smile. “Never mind.”

“Do I really what?”

“Ed said you disguise your notes as a journal full of descriptions of women.”

“There are no _ descriptions of women _ ,” Roy said, appalled but not surprised. “Which Ed knows perfectly well, by the way, because he’s seen it. I just reconceptualize every new alchemical concept as a date with a lovely lady. Or gentleman. There aren’t any _ descriptions _. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

Alphonse was laughing behind his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t really think so.” He managed to stop laughing finally and took a breath. “You’re right, this might be a lot to write down. I don’t know how you can fit all that into one date.”

“Theory is always the hardest,” Roy agreed. “If you have any suggestions, let me know.”

“Mei would be able to help if she were here. She’s very romantic.” Alphonse closed his eyes and leaned back to lie in the grass, his arms behind his head. “Hmm… maybe it could be a record of a cute young lady taking you up this mountain for a picnic and telling you some weird long-winded story. Could the pillars of philosophy be four sheep?”

Roy looked at Alphonse sharply. Alphonse’s eyes were still closed and his face perfectly innocent. He couldn’t have been implying anything, surely. “Maybe,” Roy said neutrally.


End file.
